


Actualization

by diversionary_tactician



Series: Actualization [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Agoraphobia, Awkward Sexual Situations, Birthday, Character Study, Choosing Name, Coma, Comatose Finn, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dark Past, Developing Relationship, Droidspeak, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Consent, Finn Can Cook, First Kiss, Gay Finn, Gay Poe Dameron, General Leia Organa - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Injury Recovery, Insomnia, M/M, Major Character Injury, Masturbation, Moral Dilemmas, Panic Attacks, Paranoia, Past Brainwashing, Past Social Engineering, Pet Names, Physical Therapy, Poe Dameron Can Sing, Poe Dameron Needs A Hug, Poe Needs A Hug, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Relationship Negotiation, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Discovery, Sex Education, Social Anxiety, Social Issues, Socially Awkward Finn, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts, Surgery, Triage, chosen family, language learning, naming, panic disorder, self-actualization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-05-25 00:17:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 45,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6172432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diversionary_tactician/pseuds/diversionary_tactician
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To Poe, nothing is more important than seeing the one person he cares about most wake up from the coma he's languishing in.  However, Finn's recovery from his physical injuries is only the beginning of their journey together.  The immediacy of battle left little time or space for Finn to handle the gravity of his change in situation.  With the rush of battle temporarily on hold, he begins to come to grips with the tremendous changes in his life.  Navigating a galaxy of new experiences, sensations, and connections Finn finds himself confused and adrift.  The one spectacular saving grace is the near-constant presence of Poe Dameron at his side - a man who would do anything for him, even while fighting off a few demons of his own.  Most of all, Finn has some choices to make.  After years of having his life dictated to him, it's time for Finn to decide who he wants to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I write for my own entertainment and education, and derive no financial benefit. I imagine that Disney owns the copyrights and trademarks for Star Wars. I do not hold any copyrights or trademarks associated with Star Wars or the characters, setting, or story lines depicted therein. However, I imagine those that do would appreciate your patronage.
> 
> This story will be at least eleven chapters, possibly more if I am particularly inspired. Eleven chapters are currently written and basically ready to post. I won't leave you hanging readers! I will post the next ten chapters, one chapter each Sunday, until it is complete. Please let me know what you think. Comments are greatly appreciated.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following the events at the Star Killer Base, Poe waits for Finn to wake up from his coma. The General steps in to shed some light on matters with his friend.

The droids were close at hand, and Poe could feel the presence of the General behind him. He couldn’t say everything he needed to, not like this. They put Finn on his stomach and the operating table obscured half his face. Everything they could do was done. The rest was up to Finn now. Poe reached out to take Finn’s hand, but stopped himself and looked to a droid for confirmation that he wouldn’t unwittingly do further damage or hurt his friend. The medical bot beeped and squeaked, confirming that he was stable, and that Poe could touch him, so long as he was gentle. Poe took the hand dangling limply over the edge of the table in his own and pressed dry, cracked lips to the knuckles. One hand remained gripping Finn’s lifeless palm while the other rested on the back of Finn’s head. 

“You did good Finn,” he told his friend, his voice choked with emotion. “You saved all your friends, me and Rey, we are so proud of you. She’d be here, if she could,” he added. Poe remembered the row they’d had over Rey leaving while Finn was fighting for his life. He’d said some unkind things. He’d meant them. She’d gone anyway. Finn didn’t need to know that, just that he was cared for and protected; that he had good people on his side. “But I’m here. I’m going to be here when you wake up, buddy. It’s. . .it’s the right thing to do,” he repeated the words, even though it wasn’t what he really meant and the General could probably read the subtext. Finn should get to hear his more honest declarations before Poe shared them with others.

They told him to talk. They told him it was for Finn’s sake so he regaled Finn with tales of all the things they’d do when he woke up, all the foods he’d get Finn to try and the holidays they’d celebrate, the lost time they’d make up for as soon as Finn came back to him. When he couldn’t bear the uncertainty, when he couldn’t muster his optimism, he read aloud, sang hymns and half-remembered fragments of lullabies, pleaded with Finn and god and the force just in case any of them could hear him. He didn’t kiss him. He held his hand and stroked his hair, didn’t thrust affection on him that he might not want.

He sat with a needle and thread and mended, by hand, the hole in the back of the jacket he gave Finn. His friend, he suspected, would want it when he woke up. It was the only actual possession he had and even though Poe could just see that he got another jacket, this one had history; it was special. Its flaws and imperfections were more scars than blemishes. It wouldn’t be the same jacket without them. They’d never talked about it, but he thought Finn would understand what he meant. He explained his reasons, even though Finn was unconscious and might not be able to hear them. Days passed.

“There’s this place on Xandryx One, they make red twelve-spice stew that’s worth travelling the galaxy for. I’m going to take you there, maybe Rey will be done with her training by then, and we’ll get this table right on the rim, it spins around the moon while you eat so you can see moonrise over the planet, and it’s remarkable, Finn. Like nothing you’ve ever seen. We’ll even spring for the roasted Torguu,” he promised. The General had come to check up on him. His face was rough with unshaved stubble and his eyes were dark with doubt and sunken with lack of sleep. He’d lost track of the days. He longed to hear Finn’s voice but the longer this continued the less likely it was that he would ever hear it again. 

Hands clamped down on his shoulders. “He had a powerful affection for you Commander Dameron, so full of love and fear. Through the force, you can feel things like that, if you know how. I could feel it in him,” she told him. 

Poe was exhausted, strung out, wanted to shout at her. What good was it to tell him this now when Finn might never open his eyes again? He wanted to smash things and scream, but if Finn could actually hear him, he didn’t want Finn to hear that. Something stopped his spiraling train of thought. “Afraid?” he asked. His voice sounded hoarse from keeping up a constant one-sided conversation, but it was steady and it didn’t break. Her smile was sad. She was wearing all white. She told Poe once that was what her people wore to signify mourning. It seemed overly bright in the dim medical chamber. “He’s never been this close to anyone before, of course he’s afraid,” she replied, ruffling his hair like a fond mother. Poe’s anger vanished.

“He’s got to wake up General; he’s got to wake up,” he begged her. “Can you use it, to wake him up?” he pleaded. He’d never asked her for anything. He never would again if she could just give him this. 

“The force encompasses all things, life and death, it’s balance itself, and it can’t be used to do that,” she soothed. “I wish there was a way,” she replied. She didn’t mention that there was a way, an option, a darkness that could give and give until it finally took everything he was. He was too desperate to be trusted with the entire truth. He loved too deeply to ever be a Jedi. Instead, she held him. He turned into her embrace. 

He stood there motionless, unwilling to shed tears in front of either of them, the General or Finn. But he let her hold him and the lump in his throat was so thick he couldn’t trust himself to speak. He wondered if she’d ever look at him the same way again, if she’d ever consider him her best pilot again, if he’d lose his command over this moment of weakness. Still, he was powerless to end it. When the shaking finally stopped – he couldn’t pinpoint quite when it started - she told him that she would like to talk to Finn, thank him herself, and promised to stay with him until Poe returned. He needed a shower and a shave, maybe some grub. The stuff he’d been nicking in medical was barely enough to sustain him. Suddenly he felt dead tired, but he’d sleep at Finn’s bedside, in case he woke. 

The General was as good as her word. He expected no less. Showered and clean-shaven and having choked down a bowl of boiled oats and grilled space rat with brutal speed and efficiency, he returned. “General, thank you, I needed that,” he confessed to her as she vacated his chair. She nodded, and he returned to his quiet vigil. It was four more days before Finn finally woke.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn wakes up in pain and Poe works to keep him distracted.

He woke up to a hoarse whisper and thought he dreamed it. Then he felt fingers gently twitch in his own. The chair toppled over in his rush to stand and he felt the room spin. It was far too long since he moved properly. Finn was trying to speak to him but his throat was crippled with thirst and disuse. Finn groaned low, involuntary, and pained. His eyes searched desperately for familiarity. Tears accumulated in the corner of the eye that wasn’t obscured by the table he rested on. Poe brushed the moisture away and Finn’s hand curled around his own, his muscles clenching convulsively. “Medic,” Poe screamed and Finn cringed. He whispered soft apologies before resuming his hollering. Everything was a blur, and a brief heated argument ensued that Finn lacked the coherence to follow. Then Finn felt a sharp pinch and the world went decidedly fuzzy. The agony abated somewhat, enough that he could almost think straight. Poe could see him go pale, and realized the Doc was right, too much of the drugs would leave Finn nauseated, already had done. 

A bot checked Finn’s medical status and brought some ice chips for him. “Easy pal, it’s me, Poe. I’m right here with you,” he promised, stroking his hair. Finn’s eyes were unfocused from the pain and drugs. He was still trying to speak. Poe picked one of the larger ice chips out of the cup and ran it over his cracked, chapped lips. Finn’s tongue lapped cautiously at the precious water. Two weeks of nutrient solution and IV fluids had him parched. Finn cleared his throat and tried for speech again as Poe looked for more of the big ice chips. “Ee in. . .” Poe heard, and offered Finn a confused, helpless look. “We Win?” he breathed, with a monumental effort, his words so soft that Poe had to bend down by his ear just to hear him. “Yeah buddy, yeah, we won. It was thanks to you, you know? We won and everyone’s home safe and we’re gunna take real good care of you,” Poe promised. "Rey" Finn rasped, the anxiety still clear in his features. "She's just fine, she's running around with Luke Skywalker becoming a Jedi. She'd be here if she could," Poe's tone was light and reassuring, and it seemed to work in soothing the man. Finally, Finn relaxed. His breathing evened out.

He took a few more ice chips before going a nasty shade of green and refusing anything more by mouth. Poe got up, hoping to find a blanket to cover him, but Finn’s grip on his hand tightened minutely and he sat back down, his quest abandoned before it began. Finn, it seemed, would rather not be on his own. Poe’s eyes caught sight of the mended jacket draped over a piece of currently unused medical equipment. He snatched it up in one hand and gently laid it out over Finn’s shoulders like an extra quilt. Finn breathed in the smell of the old leather appreciatively, and tried to nuzzle his face deeper into the fabric to no avail. Beyond his fingers and his lips he had no movement whatsoever. Panic stole over him. He’d been hurt in the back, was this some sort of permanent damage?

“Can’t move,” he murmured once he could trust himself to open his mouth without puking up his guts. He tried not to seem concerned but Poe could practically feel the fear radiating off of him. 

“The medical staff put you in an immobilizer. Keeps you still while your spine heals up. They worried you were going to wake up and jostle something, cause more damage. They’ll know more about your range of motion once they turn it off and we get you moving a little. PT will help,” he promised. Finn seemed to accept this, or was just too tired to argue, and maybe comforted just a little by Poe stroking his hair again.

His eyes closed and he slept for hours. 

When the searing blinding pain ushered him into consciousness once again, Poe was still there, dozing lightly in the chair by his bed. 

A low groan escaped his throat without his intent. Poe roused slowly checking on Finn for what felt like the hundredth time. The man’s distress was easy to read and Poe softly reassured him he’d go find a doctor and see what they could do to take the edge off. A young woman with a hardened expression and a plait of dark brown hair was at his side presently. “I’m Doctor Alina Nemes. Can you tell me what hurts?” she inquired softly. It seemed to Poe like an agonizingly obvious question, what hurt, Gee how about the giant lightsaber wound on his back. Still she’d been kind to him during Finn’s convalescence. She’d displayed nothing but professionalism and if she was asking he decided there was probably a reason.

Besides, the answer was not exactly what he expected. “My neck,” he whimpered, “and my back.”

She nodded sympathetically. “I’m going to turn the immobilizer off now so you can get into a more comfortable position, but I want you to take it slow,” she instructed. There was a soft metallic shwoomping sound and Poe was relieved to see real movement in Finn’s body for the first time in ages. He struggled and floundered, his muscles weak and ill-trained after their temporary immobilization, and the Doctor helped guide him until he was resting on his side, curled protectively in on himself. He said it was better but he still looked like he wanted to cry.

She carefully positioned a pillow under his head and several more along his chest so he could slump over onto them if he needed to. His breathing was still shallow with the pain and the lines of his face tight and drawn. She peeled the back off a strong smelling patch and stuck it to the back of his neck it grew warm against his skin and the medicine helped to ease strained muscles. He relaxed minutely.

“I know you’re in pain, but you’re on just about all the medication we can give you. I want you to try to take deep breaths and concentrate on something else. Poe’s going to keep you company. I can get you a visor if you think it would help to visualize another place,” she volunteered. He managed two harsh gasping breaths trying not to think about how the motion of filling his lungs made his spine explode with agony. He refused the visor, his gaze instinctively seeking out Poe. The pilots hands were braced on the edge of the bed, as he towered protectively over his friend. Finn wrapped fingers around a wrist and held on desperately. The pressure was almost uncomfortably tight and if not for the weakness of Finn’s body he was certain he’d be sporting bruises. “I’m not going anywhere,” he promised, taking a seat so he was at eye level with Finn again.

Poe racked his brains for ways to distract Finn from the pain. Finn saved him the trouble almost immediately. “When I was out, were you singing, or did I dream it,” he asked roughly, his voice hoarse and choked. 

“Not your imagination pal. I was a choir boy, the real thing. Bet you never woulda guessed that,” he offered, with so much boyish charm it was obviously affected. He moved in close so his chin was practically resting on the bed. “You want me to sing to you, Finn?” he asked gently. Finn closed his eyes, clenched his teeth, and nodded almost imperceptibly in answer to the offer. 

Music was something he had little exposure to and the novelty of it provided a pleasant counterpoint to the agony in his body. When he was out he’d been certain it was a dream. The best dreams had music in them, usually short snatches of melody from somewhere that had once been home, half-memories of before they took him. Finn wasn’t even sure they were real except he didn’t know where else he could have heard something so nice. 

Poe had a pleasant voice. It wasn’t overly polished or trained, just a smooth tenor, naturally clear and pretty. Finn couldn’t follow the words enough to know if it was an epic or a love song. If he’d been fully cognizant he would have realized the language was an unfamiliar one, but even without a translation the Doctor could hear the warmth and affection in Poe’s voice. Whether the words talked about adventure or loss or a new pair of shoes, it was every bit a love song to the man singing it. For his part, Finn adored the soft notes in the soothing minor key and the welcoming timbre of Poe’s voice.

One song slipped seamlessly into another and Finn’s breath evened and slowed, his body doubling up and his forehead coming to rest against Poe’s arm. Silently Poe added music to the list of a thousand things he’d vowed to expose Finn to when he was well again. The Doctor glanced approvingly at Poe, pleased to see how well Finn was handling the pain with his friend’s distraction. She had to admit, the fighter pilot’s music was surprisingly pleasant. The two men struck a tragically beautiful tableau, the broken body of the orphaned soldier, and the Commander with ineffable love plain across his face.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn's recovery is taking a toll on everyone, until Finn confesses his greatest fear and gets a little unsolicited advice from the General.

Finn’s range of motion was better than any of them expected. He would regain full movement if he committed himself to PT. Yet, even with the pain meds every movement shot agony through his body. The drugs kept him slow and docile. 

He couldn’t keep down food. At first they thought it was the drugs, but after watching his confusion regarding food of any kind, the doctor gently questioned him and learned he’d never eaten anything but protein slurry fed to the Storm Troopers twice daily. His body didn’t have the first clue what to do with variety or actual sustenance, and his hypersensitivity to taste and flavor made experimentation a minefield. They started him on a diet of hot cereal and clear liquids: oatmeal, broth, juice, and some kind of formula usually reserved for infants. At first, he still threw it up half the time. He lost so much weight between the coma and his severally restricted diet that he looked gaunt. Poe ached at seeing him go from the vibrant soldier to this shadow of himself. His circulation suffered, and often they sat with Poe’s hands enveloping Finn’s keeping his fingers warm.

He was tired all the time. He didn’t smile much. As they started to taper off the drugs the pain got worse. Finn became more alert and was progressing in his physical therapy, but his spirit was flagging the longer it continued. He seemed increasingly agitated and upset. Poe hasn’t flown a mission in almost a month. The General was kind, hadn’t pushed. The war efforts, in seeming respect to their situation, had temporarily quieted. The other side was regrouping, Poe was certain, but for now he would gladly accept the temporary reprieve.

“You’re almost there,” an encouraging voice murmured to Finn, undercurrents of faith and barely contained desire to help almost palpable. Sweat ran down Finn’s back tickling and scorching over cauterization scars. Every square inch of muscle was screaming at him to stop this madness, as his legs experimented with the exercise of supporting his own weight after a serious spinal injury and weeks of immobility. “Come on Finn, you got this.” Finn couldn’t help but feel an inclination to punch the voice’s owner right in his unreasonably handsome jaw. The words ‘you’re almost there’ had become Finn’s personal nemesis. He may look almost there to Poe, but to him the length of the parallel bars seemed to stretch on for miles. 

“Can you quit it,” Finn snarled from between gritted teeth. He wanted to let go of the bars, curl up in a ball, and sob with frustration. Snapping angrily at his best friend was far less damaging to his pride. His friends eyes left him and there was a wordless conference between the physical therapist behind Finn and his best friend. Finn couldn't turn around to assess the content of Kiri's half of the silent conference. Poe locked eyes with him again and, having heard this refrain before, changed tactics. “Okay, how about this, you make it to the end of the bars and I let you pop me one, right across the jaw,” he offered with a teasing smile on his face and a determined expression in his eyes. When he saw it Finn knew Poe and the PT Specialist were not going to let him stop until he finished, no matter how impossible it felt.

A small vindictive part of him actually thought taking a swing at Poe sounded pretty enticing. The physical therapist was shadowing close behind him in the likely instance that his legs gave out and he fell. Poe and the physical therapist never let him get seriously injured, but he was still bruised from his own clumsiness, and the unintentional rough handling those times when someone had to grab him to ease his fall. He could hear the smile in the physical therapist’s voice. “That’s a mighty tempting offer, kid,” Kiri put in with amusement. “You better not blow it. I want a front row seat.” While they were all working together toward Finn’s recovery, Finn’s pain-induced bad moods, and Poe’s relentless optimism were causing more than a little friction. Everyone was feeling it. He took two more steps, trying his damnedest to ignore the sensation of a knife shoved between his vertebrae with each one. Poe’s grin split wider. He fingered his chin enticingly turning his head from side to side modeling his pretty unmarred cheeks. “Whatdaya think buddy, right or left?” he crooned.

Two more steps, two more explosions of pain cutting bright white across his vision. He could feel a sob rising up in his throat and swallowed it viciously. “Pace yourself” came a stern warning from behind him. He locked eyes with Poe a hard challenging expression on his face, his friend’s was warm and open, full of confidence in him, silently encouraging him to finish. He blinked sweat out of his eyes; it burned. Four more steps to the end of the bars. Poe was close enough to catch him now if he fell. He was so damn close. When each of those four agonizing steps was taken, and he was dizzy and exhausted, Poe caught him under the arms, his body was limp as a rag doll and to his humiliation sometime during those last few steps he’d given into the tears. Poe lowered him gently into a wheelchair and stayed down with him, arms still wrapped around him for a single beat too long. 

Poe pulled back enough to look at him and his brow furrowed in concern at the tears on his cheeks. “If you’re that worried about my pretty face, you can take a rain check on messing it up,” he offered, the joking careful and soft. 

“Thanks, Poe,” he replied, viciously wiping the tears away and covering his face with his hands. This was horrible, having anyone see him like this. Wanting to lash out at the person who was his whole world was even worse. “I’m not gunna hit you,” he assured Poe thickly. 

“Itsa pity, that,” Kiri joked, in a thick resistance slang. He shrugged his broad muscular shoulders in a suit-yourself kind of fashion. “That’s twice as far as you went three days ago,” he was informed to the obvious satisfaction and approval of the man in charge of his PT. To Finn there was nothing but a quiet kind of dread. He had been at this too long and he wasn’t making the kind of progress he needed to. No one said as much, but he could read it in the passing days, the growing familiarity with his bunk in medical, and the haunted, barely-patient look in Poe’s eyes. Finn had a keen sense of his uselessness to the resistance, and knew in a soul deep way, that this was the beginning of the end for him. He had to do something or all the time and effort Poe invested in him would be worthless. Usually Finn lived for the massage at the end of his physical therapy, but after that session Kiri couldn’t seem to get him to properly relax, no matter what magic he worked with his hands.

In the days that followed, Finn started pressing Poe to get him set up with some kind of work even though he’d only just started tolerating solid food, and could barely breathe without wincing. At most he only made it three laps on the parallel bars, and by the end he was shaking, exhausted, and prone to muscle spasms that left him incoherent with pain. They hadn’t even begun discussing his release from medical yet, and the suggestion that he wanted to be up and working even part time, seemed patently absurd. Poe wondered if he was in need of a distraction that badly, but worried after his health like a mother hen. 

When Poe gently refused the request, all the anxiety and pain Finn had been holding back rose to the surface. Panic stole over him, his eyes fever bright and his breath fast and shallow. “Please don’t let me be decommissioned. I know it’s bad right now, but I’ll work, anything, whatever I can do,” he begged. Poe stared at him dumbly. He didn’t know what ‘decommissioned’ meant but he sure as hell didn’t like the sound of it. They decommissioned ships that were no longer flightworthy and usually scrapped them for parts. His imagination ran wild. Finn began to shake, given his loss of muscle mass he got cold easily, and Poe grabbed the mended jacket off the bedpost. Poe wrapped arms around him, draping the jacket over his shoulders. Finn groaned softly at the touch, but grabbed a handful of Poe’s shirt and wouldn’t let go. He was still quivering; Poe feared it wasn’t the cold.

“I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you. You’re important to the Resistance and you’re important to me. How about if the General comes down and explains how people get placed, so you’ll know what to expect when you’re ready for job assignment? Would that make you feel better?” Poe asked. Finn still looked vaguely ill, but nodded almost imperceptibly. Poe held him until long after the shaking subsided.

When the General came down to medical two days later Finn still looked ashen. Her expression changed when she saw him. His spent, broken appearance was troubling, but he was sitting upright today, and managed a half day’s ration of plain bread. It was one of his better days. She sat opposite him and took both his hands as she’d seen Poe do. They were cold and she warmed them between her palms. Her bravery and calm composure always impressed Poe, but still, her stalwart grace stopped him in his tracks at times like these. She asked to speak with Finn alone. Poe hadn’t the power to refuse her.

“I understand you were asking about taking on some work here at the base,” she began warmly. Finn nodded. “Poe mentioned that you were concerned about being decommissioned. That’s not a term I’m familiar with; can you explain it to me?” she requested impassively. Finn paled and took his hands back. He kept his eyes on them. “When someone can’t work or won’t work, or asks too many questions, or can’t keep up with the team, or makes trouble they’re taken away and they don’t come back,” Finn explained. “No one talks about them. They just disappear. But I can work, maybe not running, yet, but I can. . .” he pleaded, his face scrunching up. Poe put so much effort into getting him better, he knew Poe would be let down if he vanished without a trace. And even more than that he’d started to have a life that was his, one that he selfishly wanted to keep. 

“Ah, yes. That’s not something we do here. Here, every person is important. When a soldier can’t fight anymore we find other jobs for them. Several of our number are ill or seriously injured and cannot work at all. They help in what ways they can and we take care of the rest. No one gets left behind, or vanished, or erased,” she explained patiently. 

“But Finn, even if your body was perfectly well, are you certain a soldier’s life is what you really want? You’ve been a prisoner for years, with so little choice about who you want to be. You’ve fought for an organization whose goals you didn’t understand and whose mission you had no say in. Do you want to join another group so soon?” she paused momentarily to let Finn consider that. There was a dumbstruck look on his face but no answer. She couldn't be comparing the Resistance to the First Order, could she? No, but she was suggesting that they shouldn’t play the same role in Finn’s life. Maybe she was right, but he desperately didn’t want to leave them.

“You have a home here, whatever your decision. If you want to fight, you understand what you’re fighting for, and you’re motivated by the right reasons, we will train you once you’re well. But if you just want to stay with Commander Dameron we can arrange that too and no one will think any less of you,” she promised. 

Finn looked lost and confused. He hadn’t thought about it that way. He did want to stay with Poe. When someone said Resistance he grasped onto it if only because it was the only thing he knew outside of the First Order. He had no real understanding of what they were fighting for, only what they’re fighting against. In fact, he never realized they had a goal in mind at all, outside of getting in the First Order’s way. He wondered if she needed an answer now. She was gentle and kind with him. “There is no rush to decide, Finn. Take your time. Regain your strength. I hear you are doing quite well your physical therapy but that you have a few more weeks to go. In the meantime, I would like you to consider your sessions with Kiri your contribution to the cause. When you’ve recovered fully, we can discuss it again,” she promised. 

“I hope I’ve lain your concerns to rest. If you have any questions or you suspect something might be different here than what you’re used to, please ask us,” she advised. Finn wanted to stand up to salute her, but his body wasn’t ready for even that. He realized that he wasn’t even sure they saluted in the Resistance. 

“Thank you, General,” he replied. She stood to leave him, to return Poe to him. “Can you tell me, do they salute? Your soldiers?” he asked. It had the amusing air of an experiment, like a child attempting a new skill they’d been instructed to practice.

She smiled at his asking the question, a hint of cheekiness from the man who looked all but beaten. “Yes. When they want to tease me,” she replied, fondly. “Your Commander Dameron takes special pleasure in it, I think,” she added, with a wink. _His Commander Dameron_ , he liked the way it sounded, the way it felt, serious and teasing at once, even if he couldn’t quite understand why. He snapped off a smart First Order salute from where he was seated. She looked at him fondly, and re-positioned his hand. "Here, we do it like this," she explained walking him through the mechanics of a proper Resistance salute. Finn worked it through until he had it down perfectly, and offered her a proper parting salute. It felt strange after a lifetime of the familiar motion, yet that fond almost-proud look she favored him with when he copied it properly warmed him to the new action almost at once. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're still enjoying this. There is still more to come. Please let me know what you think in the comments section.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn is released from medical.

After weeks of hard work Finn’s physical condition had improved worlds. He still walked with a cane, and had a bot close at hand to help him if he ran into trouble, but he was up and moving around on his own. Yet, he drifted through the base like a sleepwalker, unsure where to put himself, wary of crowds, but hesitant to be on his own. When possible, he clung close at Poe’s heel but often feared that he was being a bother, that he was in the way. Poe was back to flying missions and while the other pilots treated him like a long lost brother, or some sort of prodigal son, he largely avoided their casual friendliness and tensed at their easy manners with one another and with him. He got a hero’s introduction, thanks to Poe and the General, but still found himself ducking into abandoned corridors to avoid a passing greeting or a cursory pat on the back.

He spent most of his time wondering when they would realize that he wasn’t one of them, how long it would be before it became as blindingly clear to them as it was to him, that he didn’t belong here. He was used to psytechs constantly watching for ideological anomalies and not knowing how he was supposed to think here, haunted him in every waking moment and even the most casual of interactions. Poe could declare Eight-Seven dead and buried, but Finn didn’t know how to be anyone else. He found himself constantly amazed that no one gave his place here a second thought. He was undeniably, unanimously, completely accepted. But that didn’t mean he could accept himself. He kept waiting for things to go back to the way that they had been on Starkiller Base. 

Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, Finn was permitted to sleep somewhere other than medical. The powers that be seemed terribly concerned that he receive a space of his own.

When he arrived at the comfortable private room a small collection of items had even been donated to him. A cardboard box sat on the bed containing a few books, a spare pair of boots in his size, a hand-knitted sweater, some sort of holographic brain-teaser puzzle, and a plush toy in the shape of an animal he didn’t recognize. He marveled over the box’s contents for the better part of two hours, wanting to offer his gratitude but not even certain who to thank. Until coming here, he’d never had anything of his own. Even the gear he used didn’t strictly belong to him. It was just requisitioned out to him, and could be recalled at any time and issued to another trooper. Now, in addition to the jacket, he had eight personal possessions. Never had he even conceived of such a thing.

As much as he adored the box of gifts, Finn found having his own space difficult to adjust to. He didn’t want them to think him ungrateful, but after sleeping in a dormitory with forty-nine other men all his life, the room was terribly silent and the shadows stretched long and foreboding. In medical there had been the constant hum of the machines, the movement of the bots, the footfall of the medical staff, and Poe’s measured breathing to calm and comfort him. Now he tried curling up with the plush creature in an attempt at relaxing himself, to no avail. He slept poorly, when he slept at all. He had nightmares about a fiery Tie Fighter crash and wandering an endless dessert searching for someone, in a helmet that he couldn’t seem to take off no matter how hard he tried. Waking up alone in a strange place was disorienting. Luckily he had the books to read and the puzzle to play with. However, by the fourth night of barely sleeping a wink he found himself wandering the halls, leaning heavily on his cane, exhausted almost beyond comprehension. He wasn’t sure where he intended to go and would have sworn he didn’t have a destination in mind. However, when he arrived at the pilot’s dormitory it wasn’t exactly a surprise. 

Finn looked for an empty bunk, wondering if any of the pilots would mind if he settled there for a few hours’ rest. It was late, most of the pilots were asleep or out on duty, and no one challenged him. However, the only bunks left were either at ground level which would have required him to crouch and crawl, or on the top level which required him to hop or climb. His back would not abide that sort of activity yet. One of the pilots rolled over in bed and gave him an appraising look. “You must be looking for Dameron,” she said, as though this was a given. He wasn’t but now that she mentioned it, where was Poe if not in bed at this hour? She took his silent contemplation for assent. “Pilots don’t sleep in the barracks once they get their command,” she explained. “He’s down the hall, second left, third door on the right.” 

“Thanks,” he replied. She threw him a half-assed salute, before rolling over and putting a pillow over her head, and he was on his way. Before he’d really thought it out Finn was standing at his best friend’s door. Poe sat up so many nights with him when he was ill, sacrificed so much sleep and comfort and never once complained. It would be unfair to disturb his sleep now for no real reason. He wasn’t sure what he even wanted, what Poe could do for him, outside of being good company. As he was turning around to leave he caught sight of Poe heading toward him down the hall. “Hey there, you alright?” Poe asked. Finn nodded then shrugged. “I was down in the pilot’s dormitory and they thought I was looking for you and sent me this way. I wasn’t going to bother you; I don’t want to keep you up,” he added hastily. 

Poe surveyed him curiously. “You’re not keeping me up,” he offered casually. “I was overseeing some repairs on one of the X-Wings and time got away from me.” Poe didn’t owe him an explanation, but he found he liked having one. Why was he so grateful to learn that Poe hadn’t been with someone else? It was all very foolish. “You look beat, you want to come inside?” Poe asked. Finn shrugged again, and looked uncomfortable.

“It’s late,” he observed. 

“No pressure,” Poe replied easily, giving his shoulder a warm squeeze. The contact felt nice against his shoulder muscles, tense from dealing with the cane. The fact that Poe didn’t seem to mind his company but wasn’t pressuring him set him at ease.

“Maybe just for a little while, if you don’t mind.” 

Poe favored him with a warm, understanding expression, and a nod. He pressed the keypad and the door slid open, he gestured Finn inside. It was obvious from Poe’s quarters, not only that he had been living there a long time, but that he had a frankly alarming amount of possessions. The whole room had a personalized feel that left Finn certain that he would have known it was Poe’s space even if no one told him. Poe observed him as he took in the room. For the first time since they met Finn felt awkward, like he didn't know what to say. “Want something to drink?” Poe asked moving toward several dusty bottles on a shelf. 

“No thanks,” he replied, explaining “Doc said I better not for a while yet.” He skimmed the spines of the books. More than half the titles were ones he’d seen burned and he had to remind himself he wasn’t in trouble simply by being in the presence of them.

“You can borrow one if you want,” even the offer made his pulse speed up and his throat constrict. He removed his fingers from the spines like they’d smarted at the reminder that he was being observed in this act of treachery. He had to remind himself that there was no harm in curiosity now, and that these books and these people were not his enemy. His reaction embarrassed and frustrated him. With a strange sort of defiance he pulled the most blasphemous title off the shelf, feeling more than the full weight of it.

“This one okay?” he asked. 

Poe considered him momentarily, seeming surprised by his choice. “Yeah, that’s a good one. Take your time with it. I’ve read it so many times I could practically recite it from memory,” he added with a smile. 

“Okay, thank you,” he replied. At least this would be something to do when he had to go back to his room to not-sleep.

“So pilots’ dormitory at o’three hundred, huh?” Poe inquired. He was doing that thing where he seemed to be asking more than the obvious question. Finn had no idea what he was talking about beyond the surface, however.

Finn shrugged, feeling heat in his cheeks.

“Making new friends?” Poe asked cheekily. 

Finn obviously thought about it before replying, “Not exactly. I mean they’re okay.” Either the joke had gone over Finn’s head or he wasn’t in a joking mood, Poe supposed. He was obviously sleep deprived, though there was also a sort of gratitude in knowing that Finn hadn’t been seeking out some romantic liaison in the pilot’s dormitory tonight. Poe was proud that Finn had come here, to him, when he needed company. Though he knew better than to read too much into it. Finn was so starved for affection he didn’t even recognize it when he was on the receiving end. He had a feeling about why Finn was out wandering tonight, and decided to do a little investigation.

“When they issued me my own quarters I was beside myself with excitement. I couldn't remember the last time I’d had a moment’s privacy. But it was harder to get used to than I’d expected,” Poe confessed. “I spent a lot of time napping on the flight deck.” The wry smile on his face set Finn at ease, and the easy confession made him feel less alone.

An appreciative expression crossed Finn’s face, absurdly grateful that someone understood his difficulty. “There were fifty of us to a dormitory. I’ve never spent a night alone. I think they were trying to be nice. Getting your own space, that’s special treatment, isn’t it? But I slept much better in medical,” he admitted. It wasn’t what he meant, precisely. It wasn’t the most honest version of the truth. He’d slept much better with Poe around, but he couldn’t seem to get the words out. 

“How would you feel about crashing here tonight?” Poe asked “I may not be forty nine guys, but Jess says I snore and talk in my sleep so that’s got to count for something, right?” he quipped. There was a moment of impossible hope, and a self-consciousness Finn couldn’t explain even to himself. Poe pulled off his shirt and kicked off his boots. Something about Poe standing there shirtless and utterly comfortable in his skin made Finn’s mouth go dry and his brain go fuzzy. Words weren’t cooperating with him. He’d never felt anything like this before. Poe sat on the bed and lay down, pulling back the covers invitingly and making space for him. When Finn stood there like an idiot, not moving, Poe looked at him, his confidence faltering. He wondered if he’d misjudged, suggested too much. 

Finn was inspired into movement by Poe’s uncertainty. He rested his cane against the wall and the borrowed book on the floor before removing his own shirt and shoes, limping heavily to the bed and sinking down gratefully on it. He found a comfortable spot beside Poe and got settled on his side. The sheets held Poe’s scent strongly and it lulled him into a delicious calm. Poe reached up an arm to turn off the lights and the room was bathed in dimness. Finn could already feel the seductive pull of sleep. He was still cold often and the bed was wonderfully warm from Poe’s body heating the space beneath the sheets. He could hear Poe’s soft breathing behind him, steady and even by his ear. “Thanks,” Finn breathed softly, to the darkened room “This is nice,” he added. 

“Anytime, buddy” Poe replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the feedback so far! I've really enjoyed reading the comments people have left. Hopefully the chapters still to come won't disappoint.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn's not the only one with scars from the past. When Poe needs a friend, Finn's there.

It was the fourth night in a row Finn had shown up at Poe’s room after going through the motions of wandering the halls aimlessly until finding himself at Dameron’s door. Every time Poe favored him with a soft smile and told him he wasn’t intruding, brushed aside his apologies, and welcomed him, no questions asked.

“Hey Finn, listen,” Poe began. Finn felt certain Poe was going to tell him he’d overstayed his welcome, that he had a room of his own for a reason. It was disappointing but knowing it was coming made it far more bearable. “I like having you here, wouldn’t wish for a better roommate, but if you’re staying, which I hope you will, you ought to know I sleep rough sometimes,” Poe’s face lacked the comfortable swagger Finn was so accustomed to. “It’s nothing serious just bad dreams but if it happens don’t worry about it, okay? I’m always fine by morning,” he explained. This was not what Finn had anticipated. He’d really expected to be told to get lost. 

“Is there anything I can do?” Finn asked, cautious, afraid he might pry too deeply. 

“Nah, it’s nothing, just since what happened on the base. . .” he broke off, his words sounding a little tight, “Well, anyway. I just didn’t want you to be upset or anything if you didn’t know what was going on. Just it’s better if you don’t try to wake me up,” Poe added, almost off-handedly. He looked relieved to be done explaining. “I know it sounds dumb but sharing a bunk actually seems to be helping. Beats me why, but I’m not arguing.” Finn nodded, sharing the bunk was helping him too, and he understood Poe’s reluctance to speak further on it. He was mostly able to put it from his mind. If Poe was having bad dreams, Finn didn’t seem to notice and he never said anything about dreams at all come morning. 

Finn and Poe became de facto roommates. Finn no longer went through the charade of going to his own room and then parading the halls until arriving exhausted and wordless at Poe’s door. He’d carried his cardboard box of possessions to Poe’s quarters and had been given several drawers to put his things in and his own shelf on the bookcase. Finn said it was absurd since the drawers were just sitting empty, except for the sweater and Poe obviously had things that usually went there. He was coming to learn that it was of some symbolic significance to his friend, and had eventually stopped arguing despite the foolishness of it all.

It wasn’t until nearly a week later that the nightmares Poe spoke of intruded on their comfortable rest. Finn woke up because he’d heard a noise and had then been kicked hard in the leg. He surfaced from sleep with a groan, and figured Poe must have moved funny. They made contact every now and again while they slept, but it wasn’t usually enough to keep him awake long and Poe habitually slept through any such accidental touching. Poe was covered in a sheen of sweat, breathing hard, making soft aborted sounds like he was in pain, and clenching and unclenching his fists. Finn found himself fully awake and was reaching out to touch Poe when he remembered the single request his friend had made, don’t wake him up. He complied with something akin to agony. Watching Poe hurt and not being able to help was worse than a double session on the parallel bars in PT.

Thankfully, for them both, he wasn’t forced to endure it too long. Poe woke with a strangled gasp and nearly smacked himself in the face as he moved to protect his head with his hands. He looked around with a blind terror and Finn was half-sure Poe wasn’t even seeing him. His breathing was coming in harsh gulps. “Poe,” Finn breathed softly into the darkness. No answer. “Poe, you with me?” he asked nervously. He was not confident enough to touch Poe, unsure whether it would make him feel better or worsen his condition.

“Identify yourself” came a strangled bark of a command. 

“Finn. It’s me Finn, your friend,” he replied.

“Finn?” Poe asked in a small voice, all pretense abandoned.

He nodded, “That’s right,” he replied. “C’mere a sec, will ya?” he asked. Poe observed him warily before scooting closer. Finn slowly wrapped arms around him, telegraphing his movements. Poe tensed momentarily before letting out a shuddering breath. He couldn’t stop his body from shaking, but otherwise kept a tight handle on his emotions. That he counted as an accomplishment.

Finn didn’t know what the nightmare was about, but Poe had hinted it had to do with Starkiller Base. Having Kylo Ren in a person’s head was enough to give anyone nightmares, Finn supposed. He chose his words carefully. “Poe we’re on D’Qar. We won. Everyone’s home safe,” he promised. He tightened his grip on Poe, protectively. Poe was still shaking like a leaf. Finn pulled a blanket off the bed and wrapped it around them. “We’re on D’Qar. We won and everyone’s home safe,” Finn repeated. “Say it back to me,” he instructed. Poe did as he was told in a wavering voice, sounding as though he didn’t quite believe it, especially the last part. Finn had him repeat it twice more, until the words came easily and Poe seemed to believe them. The shaking had calmed significantly.

“Are you back now?” Finn asked.

Poe nodded. As much as he needed the comfort of the contact he could no longer justify staying there burrowed in Finn’s warm embrace. With a great force of will he shifted to remove himself from Finn’s arms, and the blanket bundle they’d created. Finn didn’t stop him, though a part of him wished he had. Poe’s hands were still shaking, and he still felt unsteady. He wiped the sweat from his brow. “I’m sorry I woke you,” he murmured.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Finn asked. 

The bed suddenly seemed constricting. Poe got to his feet and found himself feeling even more bereft, but he wanted the movement. “It will go away. It always does,” Poe said out loud. Finn suspected he was saying it more to himself than to anyone else. The way he paced worried Finn. “You can go back to sleep, if you want. I’ll. . .I can take a walk,” Poe suggested. He saw two clear paths, one involved working his body until his mind went blank, the other involved hitting the bar and drinking until he couldn’t remember his own name, let alone his own nightmares. 

There wasn’t a chance in hell Finn was getting back to sleep with his friend in this precarious state. Finn stood up too and halted him in his progress. “We could go for a walk together,” Finn suggested. Poe frowned at him and ran his hand through his hair nervously. He was obviously not content with this suggestion. “What will help you feel better?” Finn asked directly.

It was a tricky question. The idea of drinking in front of Finn in a way that wasn’t social or recreational made him feel strangely naked and self-conscious. Yet, he swallowed his pride, went to the shelf where he kept the liquor bottles and poured himself a drink of something a deep blue color, with a strong, paint-thinner smell. He took a sip and winced. His hand still shook. Finn noticed it even more with the glass in his hand. He took another slow sip and seemed to collect himself marginally. “I hate that you have to see me like this,” Poe admitted.

“Doesn’t make me think any differently about you,” Finn assured him. Besides, Poe had seen him a hell of a lot worse.

“It should. I broke,” Poe confessed, with a quiet kind of devastation. “You ought to think differently about me.”

Finn gave him a sad look. “You can’t think very highly of me then,” Finn offered, not looking at him. “I broke long before you did, and they didn’t have to work as hard at it, with me.”

Poe considered him. “You were a kid,” Poe replied. 

“You were tortured,” Finn countered. Poe shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal and drowned the glass in a single painful-looking gulp. 

His brow was furrowed, like his thoughts were somewhere he preferred they wouldn’t go. He screwed up his face, trying to keep his emotions in check. “Having that thing inside my mind. Did they do it to you too?” Poe asked with barely held composure.

“I was never important enough,” Finn explained. “I kept my head down and forced myself to think what I was supposed to think. The worst they would do to me was skim over my thoughts, like a cold hand petting the surface of my brain. What was done to you must have been like having that hand delve into the center of your brain and rearrange the parts, right?” he asked softly. He’d known a few guys who had earned that kind of treatment. No one ever spoke about it, but they always came back changed, broken. None ever lasted long. He didn’t like to think of that kind of future for Poe. “Come back to bed,” Finn requested.

Poe’s did as he was asked, laying back down. This time Finn pressed up close, pulling Poe tightly into his body. Poe was painfully aware that he probably smelled like liquor and sweat. Yet, for Finn, he needed to know that Poe was real and here and not like those other men with the dead eyes and the haunted expressions. Besides, the action seemed important, the culmination of something. After days of sleeping in such close quarters the simple act of having Poe in his arms shouldn’t have changed that much, but it did. Everything about this was against every regulation he’d ever lived by. But the touch seemed to be doing something good for Poe, something healing. Finn followed his instincts, and engaged in several clumsy attempts at soothing touch, until he tried rubbing circles over Poe’s chest and the man's body went lax, warm and pliant in Finn’s arms. That was worth all the ire any Superior might rain down on him.

Poe spoke to the darkness. It helped that he knew Finn couldn’t see his face. He described the nightmare in vivid, painful detail, recounting every ugly fragment of memory. Then he talked about the pilots they lost in the battle. Then he talked about his parents, how they died for what they believed in and how his every action was measured against whether he was good enough to share their name. He hemorrhaged words, a verbal bloodletting. He talked until he was exhausted, until there were no more left. Finn’s arms stayed close around him the entire time and he never interrupted.

“Finn?” he asked after a long pause, once all the words were gone from him. He felt lighter, almost dizzy, like he’d just broken atmo and gravity was null. He was unsure whether Finn was still awake or whether his monologuing had lulled Finn into sleep. “I’m right here,” Finn confirmed softly. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” Poe confessed. He’d told Finn things tonight he’d never told another living soul and Finn had just lain there silent and willing, receiving his confessions. 

“I don’t know much about family names,” Finn confessed with some trepidation. “But I think you do yours proud,” he offered. For all that he’d kept from tears so far, Poe felt moisture threaten at the corner of his eyes. He swallowed a few times against the lump in his throat. 

“If you ever decide you want one I’d share mine with you,” he promised. It was Finn’s turn to feel his composure slip. He knew just how much Poe was offering him with the seemingly simple gesture. He wasn’t sure he could accept it, not when he didn’t even know if he could commit himself to The Resistance and the lofty ideals he was still just beginning to grasp. The Resistance was something so entangled with the Dameron name that Finn felt he needed to be certain of his own commitment to the mission to be able to honor it. “Thanks Poe, I’ll think about it,” he decided. And with that, they went back to sleep.

The next morning Finn was still curled up around Poe when they woke and the touch warmed him to his core. They didn’t pass a word about their nighttime interruption, but Poe uncharacteristically left the bathroom door open a crack and sang in the shower, because he knew Finn liked it, and that simple kindness was easier for him to manage than a proper thank you. What Finn never told him, would never have the right words to admit, was that it had felt good, to be the one who could help Poe when he wasn’t a pillar of strength. It wasn’t that he wanted Poe to feel bad, of course he didn’t, but he’d been taken care of for a while, by the Doctors, by the General, and most of all by Poe. It was empowering that he could be the one to take care of his friend for a change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the awesome comments I've received so far! They have prompted me to put a lot of additional time into this work and it's much longer and richer thanks to your encouragement.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn starts looking for a job, and finds one in an unlikely place. But will Poe accept his new occupation?

At some point, almost without his noticing, food had become exciting instead of scary. He was beginning to put back on weight. This was due in part to the fact that the cook, impressed by his war record and concerned by his emaciated appearance, had been slipping him the choicest bits and extra helpings. It was fun to watch Finn take pleasure in food after his rocky introduction to it. Finally, Poe could delight in spoiling him with snacks and sweets, delicacies, and things that he associated fondly with home. 

He discovered, to his surprise, that Finn delighted, not over the cacao nibs, rich wine soaked pies, or spice laden thick cut meats, but rather over the freshest and cleanest of ingredients, generally in remarkably plain forms. Foods that were too rich still left him ill and uncomfortable, but he delighted in fresh fruit and raw vegetables. Once Snap gave him a handful of boysenberries he and Jess found near the outskirts of the base and Finn sat with his eyes closed in delight and concentration eating the little purple clusters one at a time until they were all gone. Poe snuck groundapple, firebud, and raw space carrot from the kitchen for days when the pain was bad and little seemed to interest Finn. Those days had grown fewer and farther between.

With his physical health slowly falling into place, Finn felt a renewed need to secure a job, a place for himself in this community that had adopted him. A place he still didn’t fit. He’d been thinking more and more about it, obsessing really. However, he also realized that as much as being a soldier was familiar to him, he couldn’t do that either. It wasn’t his physical condition that stopped him, but his mental one. The General was right. Finn needed to trust himself, before he could take orders again. 

Finn would fight for Poe, but he wasn’t sure he could fight Poe’s battles without understanding why. The books were helping with that, but it all felt so abstract, so removed from himself. He’d never had the luxury of worrying about the fate of the universe. The only fate he’d been concerned with was his own, and in a muted tangential sort of way, the little group of troopers under his supervision. Given the constant threat of death, torture, and outright erasure he had more than enough to concern himself with. Worrying about his new friend and his multitude of new acquaintances was enough of an adjustment without piling on the remainder of the occupied planets. 

Yet, despite his acknowledgment that he was not fit to fight until he sorted things out, every trip to the mess seemed to be laced with guilt and anxiety these days. Like someone would look up and call him out on being there, or worse, know telepathically how much of an outsider he was and bring him into a small hidden room where people went to disappear. It didn’t help that the doctors, Poe, and even a few perfect strangers seemed actively interested in his calorie intake. Though he had to admit, he could definitely afford to put on fifteen or twenty pounds, even with his recent progress. Yet, he was also aware that he was doing nothing to earn his keep. His anxiety mounted with every passing moment. He might believe in theory that people weren’t decommissioned here, but the terrified socially-conditioned core of him that governed his every action had difficulty truly taking that reality to heart.

It was time to talk to the General again and Finn resolved to do it as soon as he could without interrupting the many more important things she had to do. In the meantime, he tried to help out where he could, but he quickly learned that he didn’t know anything about anything, not ship maintenance or administration, not even how to deal with people. When he wasn’t hiding, he was constantly underfoot and in the way. Even his specialty, sanitation, was completely foreign here. Being on the face of a planet, sanitation work was nothing like what he was used to up in space, and when he tried to help out, his back was screaming within an hour of beginning to dig out the ducts. 

He spent the next two days back in medical with debilitating muscle spasms and the ever-present displeasure of Doctor Nemes. It was even worse because Poe was away on a mission. Finn was doped up to his eyeballs on painkillers and wasn’t sleeping well despite needing the rest. He had trouble falling asleep and had started having violent nightmares. Jess swung by medical to see him, and brought him some fresh fruit and the stuffed creature that had come to him in the cardboard box, even though he never thought to ask for it. It was real nice of her and he voiced his thanks. She asked if he’d given it a name and Finn looked at her like she was crazy. 

“It’s what kids do, with their toys. They give them names,” she explained, seeing his utter confusion. 

Finn looked at the creature. “I don’t even know what species it’s supposed to be. I never got to ask the person who gave it to me. It was an anonymous gift, when I got out of medical,” Finn confessed looking at the creature with way more seriousness than a plushie warranted. Jess stifled a giggle, not entirely effectively. “What?” Finn demanded, feeling color in his cheeks at being confused by something children obviously knew how to do without prompting. It seemed like a big responsibility naming something. He didn’t know how Poe had done it so casually.

“It’s a Shylock, a rare kind of Mynock. I’m not surprised you haven’t run into one before,” she offered “I’ve never seen one either, not in person anyway.” Finn was genuinely intrigued to learn the species his toy depicted. He considered momentarily how to go about naming something. He thought about how Poe had named him, using the sound of the beginning of his identification number. It seemed only natural to name the toy the same way. “What about Shylo,” he asked. 

Jess smiled. “Creative,” she quipped sarcastically. He blushed deeper, missing the sarcasm entirely. ‘Creative’ had been a particularly favored insult among some of the commanders, always with the edge of threat, the accusation of dangerous non-conforming thoughts, and the looming possibility of psytechs, mind wipes, and decommissioning. His body went rigid with fear like he’d touched a live wire. His back responded by seizing painfully and he scrunched his eyes shut, breathing shallowly until the spasms in his muscles eased off a little. Perhaps it was the pain or that unexpected slight which caused his brain to require a moment to catch up after the next thing she said. 

“I used to call it Cosima. But, I think Shylo is better. Get some rest,” Jess added, before taking off with a brazen grin that Finn would have sworn Poe had patented. He was left reeling and confused. Both that she had obviously been the one to give him the gift and he didn’t know why or how to thank her, and about the other thing, the subtly worded observation that made him feel observed and unsafe. The doctor had to give him a sedative to help him sleep and banned any further visitors. Finn didn’t mind, he had Shylo now, and Poe was the only person he really longed to see.

After the two hellish days curled up in a fetal position in medical, Finn decided not to go back to digging, seeing as all it had accomplished was making himself a bigger bother. Poe wasn’t due back for at least another day and Finn had to admit, even to himself, that he was moping. He felt numb and disconnected. Nothing seemed to have much point. When there was a line out the door for lunch Finn glanced around in surprise and considered giving up on it altogether. He didn’t have much of an appetite anyway. Then several loud bangs and a sting of curses emanated from the kitchen. Finn had always liked the cook, a squat, grizzled, veteran of indeterminate sex who hailed from a planet Finn was still trying to learn how to pronounce. 

Whatever was happening back there, could not be good. The line of hungry and impatient soldiers certainly wasn’t helping matters. Finn got out of line and poked his head into the kitchen. “You okay, Meeko?” Finn asked. The youngster who usually assisted was nowhere to be seen. Possibly hiding from Meeko’s wrath, but not likely. When he was down in medical Finn had seen a few folks come in with a virus, not dangerous but still uncomfortable. He had been too invested in his own misery at the time to notice if the child had been among the patients.

The cook turned around obviously ready to bite the head off of whomever saw fit to disturb before realizing it was Finn and softening considerably. “Does this look okay to you, Ziek?” the cook demanded, a huffed laugh of exasperation in their tone. Finn had long since learned that Ziek was an affectionate term Meeko used for soldiers they liked. Though the way it was said always led Finn to assume that it was also a rebuke, possibly something akin to ‘foolish child’ though in the most soft-hearted way possible. 

It most certainly did not look okay. There was the acrid smell of something burning, a pile of large pans that had obviously clattered to the ground, and a livid orange goo stained the entire front of Meeko’s clothing. “What can I do?” Finn asked, putting down the tray that would obviously not be filled anytime soon. Meeko considered him for a moment. 

“Have you ever cooked anything before?” 

Finn felt heat rise high in his cheeks. “Not exactly.” He admitted. In truth, the answer was – not ever. “I’m good at following orders,” he replied apologetically. 

A pleased nod. “That’ll do, turn off the burner under the soup and scrub your hands.” Finn delighted in having clear directions and tasks that were manageable. He turned the burner off under the giant pot and washed up thoroughly. The cook asked him if there was anything he wasn’t supposed to be doing and he confessed that lifting heavy things was a bad idea and that he’d be able to work for longer if he could do at least some of the work sitting down. The suggestions were met with ready accommodation, as Meeko slid him a stool from the corner. 

Meeko was absurdly grateful for the help and for the better part of the afternoon he fell into the pattern of listening and following instructions. Yet, it wasn’t the sort of mind numbing work Finn was used to from his sanitation days. He liked it. His mind went blessedly blank as he carefully chopped, seared and seasoned, while Meeko threw together sandwiches with surprising speed and accuracy. The lunch crowd got their grub, and large trays full of entrees and sides were put out for the dinner service. Finn was surprised to find that hours had passed. He was tired but not in that unbearable, soul-weary way that he’d become all too familiar with.

A bowl of the soup he’d been tending and an overstuffed sandwich were placed in front of him. Finn was ravenous. He was also surprised that the soup he’d been looking after was pretty tasty. They ate in amiable silence until most of the food was gone. “How would you like to learn to be a chef?” Meeko asked. Finn shrugged, he’d never thought about it before. In fact, he hadn’t thought about any kind of future before, just the ever-present need to be engaged in something useful to someone else.

“Wasn’t that what we just did?” Finn asked. So long as someone was willing to tell him what to do, like Meeko had today, he was pretty sure he could do just fine at this chef thing without too much instruction. Meeko gave him a look of consternation. 

“What we just did, Ziek, was cook. I’m not talking about cooking I’m talking about the culinary arts,” the words were accompanied by a verbal flourish that caused Finn to raise an eyebrow. He was unaware that there might be a distinction. The suggestion was met with a skeptical look. Few knew that Meeko had been a renowned chef on their planet before the war made a refugee of their entire people and the Resistance became a necessary calling. “You follow instructions incredibly well, Finn, but what I’m talking about is creativity, inspiration, making something special.”

“I’m not creative. I do as I’m told,” Finn replied defensively. “Why do people keep saying that to me?” there was a genuine question, terrified desperation in the asking.

The alien face arranged itself into a sad expression, and their voice grew soft. “Ziek, creativity is already inside you, someone just needs to nurture it. It’s nothing to be frightened or ashamed of; it’s valuable. I know you’re a good boy; I know you follow orders like a good soldier. There’s a time and a place for that. But this is about taking the goodness that’s already inside of you and putting it in a form that someone else can enjoy. That’s what creativity is. And there’s a place here for that too. If you let me, I’d like to teach you how.”

Finn looked helplessly at Meeko. He liked Meeko. Meeko knew he was a good soldier even when he used his own mind. And Meeko obviously liked creativity. Had Jess liked it too? Had it actually been a compliment rather than a warning? But what if it was just Meeko, and it made the General mad? Even if the kind cook didn’t mean it, they could still get him in a lot of trouble, life-ending trouble. Finn hadn’t seen psytechs here – a fact that he was all too grateful for - but he still assumed they were present, just hidden. He wished Poe were here to tell him what to do, but he wasn’t and he wasn’t sure that Poe would understand why he wasn’t going right back to being a soldier. His friend would probably be disappointed in his choice, even if the choice itself wasn’t inherently dangerous – which he still hadn’t ruled out. But the frightening thrill of knowing he had a choice at all emboldened him, even while making his meal toss fitfully in his stomach.

“I want to learn,” Finn admitted, a hint of trepidation and guilt heavy in his tone. “But only if the General says it’s okay,” Finn appended.

Meeko gave him a proud look and patted him on the cheek and it made something swell in his chest, an indescribable feeling stealing over him. It was something he had never experienced before. “I’ll have a word with her and see if we can get you assigned to the kitchens for work,” Meeko promised. When he learned later that night, that he had the General’s enthusiastic support, he practically glowed. He met Poe on the runway with a smile so wide that his friend almost didn’t recognize him. They embraced like they’d been apart for years instead of mere days. Poe breathed in the smell of Finn’s worn leather jacket, and knew for sure he was home after the exhausting mission.

“I missed you,” he confessed. 

“Yeah, me too,” Finn agreed. “I’m glad you’re back safe,” he added.

As soon as Poe was out of his gear and they were back in their shared quarters, Poe asked to hear about everything he’d missed, obviously attuned to Finn’s barely contained excitement.

“I have a job!” Finn blurted out. “Meeko’s going to teach me to be a chef and the General said it was okay, she said it would be good for me to try new things,” he explained in a jumble of words. He was watching for any signs of disappointment, hopeful but nervous. Poe enveloped him in another tight hug, and Finn couldn’t see his face, it never occurred to him that that might be the point. “That’s great Finn. I’m so happy for you,” Poe offered, close by his ear. By the time Poe pulled away he was smiling.

Finn smiled back at him, big and genuine, like he hadn’t seen since they were working side by side. “Meeko said I could do something good,” Finn admitted, a little shyly. “You’re going to be great,” Poe confirmed, his enthusiasm bolstered by Finn’s obvious delight. “Are you disappointed that I’m not diving back into the fight?” Finn asked, a little cautiously. He had to know for sure. 

“Of course not,” Poe replied. He was lying, a little, both to Finn and to himself. He wanted his best friend by his side, but he wanted him to be happy too. It was selfish, he knew that, which was why he was careful to hide that inescapable hint of disappointment. “You’ll fly when and if you’re ready, until then I can’t wait to see what you come up with in the mess,” Poe offered animatedly, and with a more genuine smile. Finn looked relieved, like he was finally allowed to be truly happy about the day’s events. For the rest of the night Poe suggested dishes he should try to get Meeko to teach him and Finn either laughed at the ridiculousness of the suggestions or acquiesced and made a note to ask later. It was the perfect end to a very good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter was relatively upbeat. Things are looking good for Finn right? Maybe too good. I promise some quality angst and hurt/comfort, next chapter. Stay tuned. Please leave comments! I really enjoy reading them and hearing what people think. 
> 
> Also, in case anyone is curious. Meeko is an agender character. It stands to reason that some species would lack binary gender classifications, or even any concept of gender at all. Hence the they/them/their pronouns.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn has his first experience with a party and things don't go exactly as planned.

As it happened, socialization was far more treacherous than food. At first the common area left Finn nervous. “It’s okay, pal, this is where we can go in our off time. No one’s gunna bother us,” Poe promised him after Finn hesitated several moments too long on the threshold of the rec room. Afraid that refusing to go in could be more dangerous than entering, Finn followed, something cold and dead settling in his stomach. Finn couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. He clung close at his friend’s side and barely spoke a word he didn’t comb over twelve different ways in his mind before it left his mouth. 

Despite the fact that he and Poe quickly become regulars, Finn never relaxed there. Finn had no real experience interacting freely with anyone. Everything had been done under the watchful eye of superiors and attachment of any kind opened oneself up to a myriad of dangers. Entanglement had been discouraged among the Storm Troopers through means that Finn hinted at but never directly elaborated upon. Troopers reporting on one another was strongly encouraged. This and the constant surveillance by superiors and psytechs meant that every unstructured space felt dangerous.

One night, there was a party in the rec room, and Poe wouldn’t shut up about it. He seemed really excited and he clearly wanted Finn to be really excited too. Birthdays were one of the things that Poe had promised to share with him if he ever woke up from his coma, but Finn had no way of knowing that. Still, it wasn’t fair to be annoyed at him for his enthusiasm, especially when he seemed so earnest in his desire to share the experience. 

Part of the problem was that Finn didn’t know exactly what he was supposed to be excited for. It made Finn nervous; the rec room already stressed him out; he’d never been to a party before; and his concept of birthdays was foggy at best. “It’s a _birthday_ Finn,” Poe had said, as though this was the greatest event ever. When they got to the rec room it had been decorated in streamers and confetti. There was blaring music coming from somewhere, the room was dark but light flickered and swept in flashes from several bots so it was impossible to get the full layout of the room or make a proper threat assessment, and everyone was packed in, moving like a giant tub of worms writhing against one another. Finn felt his stomach turn over and was grateful that he hadn’t eaten anything. Poe told him to save his appetite since there would be snacks and cake. Cake he would now, definitely, not be eating.

Poe took his hand and led him into the room. The chaos closed in around him and Finn could barely tell whether it was his heart or the music that was causing his entire bloodstream to throb rhythmically. Poe’s hand felt like the only thing keeping him tethered to the universe. “Let’s wish Jim a happy birthday,” Poe shouted over the music oblivious to his situation. Finn could barely hear him, and squeezed his hand tighter, following in the direction he was pulled. Bodies brushed him on all sides as they moved through the crowd and Finn was terribly aware of every accidental contact. The touch seemed to linger unwelcome on his skin with an unbearable crawling sensation.

They finally found Jim and his wife Lida. They were dancing, Jim with a drink in one hand. “Ho, Jimbo” Poe greeted him boisterously, shouting over the music and the noise of the crowd. Jim smiled and clapped Poe on the back. “Poe, Finn, I’m glad you came. Finally, it’s a party,” he teased fondly. “Happy birthday, Man,” Poe replied grinning at Jim then at Finn. Finn choked out the same phrase, copying his mate, and Poe beamed at him like he’d just performed a particularly clever trick. “Why don’t you both grab a drink then join us out here,” Lida suggested “The night is still young even if some of us aren’t anymore,” she teased her husband. 

Poe was leading him through the crowd again. It seemed to close in on Finn with every shift and glide. Now he was certain it was something in his body rather than the unreasonably high bass, because the hammering of his heartbeat was doing double time with the music. Someone touched his shoulder and Finn whirled around his hands coming up defensively. He lost contact with Poe and was suddenly adrift in the crowd. Finn had a horrible feeling of disconnection with the room, of a deafening silence falling. He felt a terrible foreboding, an irrational knowledge that their superiors knew of this riot and would put it down with blasters and everyone would be lying bloody in the dark the lights casting an ominous glow on the macabre scene. He wanted out. He wanted to scream to warn them. But he couldn't even get enough breath to utter a word. Finn’s knees gave out and the crowd split to create a slight clearing where he landed. The world narrowed to his blind panic and the terrified thought that he was dying, that everyone was going to die with him. That Poe was going to die again. Someone was grabbing him roughly around the middle and bodily bearing him out, away, his own legs definitely weren’t working. 

The world exploded into light as he was half-carried half-dragged into the corridor outside the rec room. He could still hear the music but a little more distantly. He was deposited on the ground and Temmin Wexley was kneeling in front of him, Poe standing several steps behind looking scared and confused. “Easy does it mate, look at me,” Snap soothed. Finn still couldn't breathe, he was gasping in shallow rattling lungfuls of air but none of it seemed to be reaching his chest. He had to warn them of something, the something terrible that was coming.

“Does he have something he takes for anxiety?” Snap asked Poe. 

Poe floundered, “No, I don’t think so anyway.” 

Jess was hovering back by the doors. She’d obviously seen their dramatic exit. “Do you need anything?” she asked, clearly concerned about intruding but wanting to know what was happening. She’d also shooed away a handful of curious would-be onlookers. But no one had noticed.

“Jess, good. Go down to medical and bring one of the docs up here, tell’em we need some assistance,” he instructed in a calm but firm voice. Jess was off like a shot.

“Finn, I’d like to take your pulse now, can I touch your wrist?” Snap asked. A flare of horror, Finn’s hand was out in front of him to fend Snap off and he was saying no between gasping breaths. 

“Okay, man, I understand, I’m not gunna touch you if you don’t want. You’re safe with me,” Snap reassured him. 

“Gunna die. . . stop, stop ‘em,” Finn insisted in a choked plea.

Snap chanced another glance at Poe who looked equally lost. “You’re not dying Finn. No one’s dying. We’re not gunna let that happen,” Snap tried, keeping his reassurances vague. “Now I want you breathe with me, okay? In for two then out for two,” Snap instructed. 

Even scared and lost as he was Finn could see the brush off. He still felt the dire need to warn someone who would listen to him. “No” Finn resisted in a strangled cry struggling to get up but unable to prompt his body fully into motion. Here and there and then and now were blending together in a way that left him confused, dizzy, and nauseated.

“Finn, I need you to stay right where you are for me,” Snap commanded softly, though he didn’t reinforce the instruction with any kind of physical contact. Finn couldn’t get his legs under him anyway.

Poe came a few steps closer to him, kneeling down just a little behind Snap so they were all at eye level. “Finn, pal, what’s got you so upset?” Poe asked gently, feeling every ounce of his uselessness. He doubted the possibility of a real security threat but had to at least entertain the idea that Finn had seen something he hadn’t. “Riot . . all get blasted up. . .gunna be a bloodbath. . .got to stop,” Finn pleaded in a gasping hiss between impossibly ineffective breaths. 

Snap jumped back in. “Alright, Finn, I hear you. I understand why you’re scared,” he reassured him, trying to validate his emotions without validating his irrational fear. Dancing feet and the pounding bass inside the room turned into the thud of boot clad feet marching. Finn had to warn someone of the impending doom, even if they killed him for it. “The ones watching. . .” he choked ominously. Poe had to take a few long seconds to work out whatever the hell that meant. He flashed back to a moment on Starkiller Base, when he’d asked Finn if he was with the Rebellion. The answer came back to him with haunting clarity and the sharp flavor of remembered fear:

_How long do you think someone with resistance sympathies could last in a place like this. We’re under continuous observation. You even wink the wrong way and the psytechs are all over you._

He was such a self-centered idiot. It dawned on him with sickening clarity why Finn always seemed so quiet and lifeless in the rec room. The idea of an unmonitored common space must seem so absurd to Finn as to be beyond improbability, and he’d never even suspected. 

“Finn you got to listen to me man,” Snap interrupted. “I need you to take nice deep breaths,” he instructed, wanting to get Finn calmed down before delving further into whatever this was about. Finn scrunched his eyes shut and tears leaked from the corners, his head connected with the wall behind him with a loud thump as he struggled to get breath. The pain was dizzying and he felt himself retreating from it. He obviously wasn’t listening to Snap. Snap hoped he wasn’t going to have to grab him to keep him from hurting himself. 

Finn was starting to look unsteady and grey like he might pass out if this kept up much longer. Snap, desperate, acquiesced. “Poe’s going to go stand guard and not let anything bad happen,” Snap assured Finn. He motioned for the commander to go do as he’d suggested. Poe walked a few paces toward the rec room door and glanced back for confirmation that this was the plan, before standing at attention. Finn opened his eyes. He saw Poe standing sentinel. 

Snap’s face was back in his line of vision, but everything was fuzzy and grey around the edges. Finn grabbed a handful of Snap’s shirt. “Good, that’s good, use it to ground you. So like I said we’re going to breathe in for two then out for two,” Snap instructed, demonstrating, and then conducting Finn in following him. He talked Finn through the simple act of breathing and the world narrowed to fighting the suffocating feeling with numbers, first a count of two, then a count of four. It shouldn’t have worked but it did. The doctors arrived before Snap got to a count of six.

Snap stayed close at hand until the real doctor had things more or less under control, in part because it took that long for Finn to release the handful of fabric. He strode a few steps over to where Poe had stationed himself, signaling that he could stand down, even though he wasn’t technically the commander here. “The hell’d you learn how to do that?” Poe asked, in awe. “Everyone had to be cross-trained. While you were learning trick maneuvers I got my field medic’s badge,” he explained. “Let’s just say you wouldn’t want me performing field surgery, but I got real damn good at this. Had mor’n enough practice for one lifetime. What you just saw was preventable. If you’re going to be together all the time, you’d do well to learn how to spot the signs earlier and to do what I just did when you can’t,” Snap offered, confidentially.

“Yeah, I screwed, up. Tonight was too much. What can I do to help now?” Poe asked. 

“Don’t press him. Don’t minimize whatever set this off, even if it sounds outlandish. Don’t touch him unless he gives you permission. And don’t leave him alone. The medical staff will take care of most of the rest,” Snap offered sympathetically. Poe nodded his appreciative assent. 

With that Snap came back over to Finn to check on how he was doing with the doctor. Finn was still ashen, still sweating bullets, but his eyes were clearer and his gaze more focused. He hadn’t passed out. It didn’t escape Snap’s notice that the doc had managed to handle Finn enough to attach a monitor that was providing blood pressure, pulse, and blood oxygenation readings to a little handheld device.

Snap hovered close by as Finn ambled to his feet, refusing help from anyone but the wall which was doing most of the work of keeping him vertical. “You want Poe to stay with you, right?” Snap asked rhetorically. Of course the kid wanted Dameron, any idiot could spot the special connection the two men shared. “I’ll stay and do guard duty over the party. You have my word on that.” Snap vowed with a solemnity that surprised Poe, but maybe it shouldn’t have. He relieved the commander and took up watch outside of the rec room.

“Thanks,” Finn replied. Surrendering to the help he was receiving actually seemed to calm him some. It was still hard tearing himself away from the hallway when his every instinct was screaming danger at him. But to his surprise, he trusted Snap to do as he’d promised. They got Finn settled quietly in a bunk in medical with the curtains pulled close around him. The doctor that had first responded brought him a cool cloth for his neck and asked him if he wanted drugs to help him calm down. Finn shook his head. He needed to be able to trust his own mind. Poe sat with him for an hour as he struggled to calm his anxieties. Poe talked to him, describing familiar objects in their surroundings since it was something that occasionally helped him after nightmares. When Finn’s fear bubbled to the surface and he voiced concerns Poe calmly reminded him that Snap was upstairs keeping watch and countered his fears with questions, never belittling what he was scared of but not agreeing with it either.

_Think about it for a minute, Finn, is that a fear about now or about before?_

_I’m a Commander. You know me. Would I ever hurt my friends for making noise?_

_I’ll vouch for the other commanders, Finn, each and every one. You’ve met some of them. Are they the kind of people who would hurt their men?_

_Remember when General Organa came down and talked to you when you were sick? Do you think she’d give an order that would leave her soldiers injured or dead?_

When questions didn’t seem to work Poe, desperate, attempted explanation.

_I know it may sound strange, Finn. But no one is watching us. No one cares what we say or do or think in the rec room because we all chose to be here and we could all leave anytime we want. No one’s scared that the soldiers are going to rebel against their Commanders so no one cares if they’re all together in one place or if they are loud._

Amid Poe’s reassurances, Finn’s body worked to purge the adrenaline from his system. Eventually he settled with his head resting on a pillow, thrown over Poe’s lap. Still he cringed when Poe forgot himself and tried to lay a hand on his shoulder. Poe ended up with his hands awkwardly at his sides and a mumbled word of apology. It wasn’t until Snap came down to medical almost two hours later to report that the party had ended without incident, that Finn was really able to regain his mind entirely. After completing his report, Snap told them to give a call if they needed anything, and headed off to bed. Maybe it was his imagination but Poe was almost certain Wexley wasn't just humoring Finn. Poe would swear he’d actually stood at attention for two hours pulling guard duty no one had assigned him just to make Finn feel safer. Poe was pretty sure he had never been so grateful to a friend before in his life.

Once Finn had settled down some, following the report, the doctor came around and asked him if there was anything they could do to make him more comfortable. He said he’d feel better if he could take a shower. It was one of those strange novelties of New Republic living. They bathed like they were outside on a planet in the rain. It was nothing like the dry chemical showers that he’d grown up with. The entire practice, while at first foreign, was one of the most welcome indulgences he’d had here. The hot steam and warm trail of water over his body just might help to relax his awareness of all the casual non-regulation touch and the sticky sweat that clung to him. 

The doctor considered it for a moment. “Sure,” he agreed, “let me grab you some sundries,” he offered. He left and returned with a towel over one shoulder, a small stash of toiletries, and a clean pair of scrubs. By the time he was back Finn had dragged himself out of bed and Poe was rubbing the circulation back into his thighs. The doctor led Finn to the small bathroom and told him to holler if he needed anything.

Finn turned the water on hot and stripped off his sweat-soaked clothing. He washed the smell of fear from his skin and he was right, it did make him feel better. It wasn’t even so much about the water itself, but the calm quiet of the bathroom and the comfortably enclosed space. He lived in a symbiotic relationship with his agoraphobia, the parasitic thoughts like a soft white noise in the background that he rarely acknowledged until it overwhelmed him. As the last of the adrenaline faded he sat on the floor under the shower spray and leaned his head against the wall and let the warm water beat down on him. A regular shower had to be at least a week’s water ration back on Starkiller Base. Lingering was more self-indulgence than usually allowed himself, but he was just so sleepy and the water felt so good. When the water started to cool, Finn dragged himself up, dried off and dressed in the scrubs. One look at Poe’s face told him that he must look better too.

They gave him the choice of whether he wanted to bunk down in medical or head back to their room. He chose medical. He’d spent more time in medical than he had in Poe’s room. The soft predictable noises and the acknowledgment by everyone of the degree of observation was comforting. Finn curled up in his old bunk. Poe hovered uncomfortably for a second before pulling up a chair. 

Doctor Nemes was back in medical and had apparently received a briefing on his episode. Now that Finn was thinking straight again, he was humiliated that it had happened, especially in front of other people. The worst part was, that if it happened once, it could happen again, at any time. And the memory came back to him that this had happened before, a couple of times; after Jakku, when he’d taken his helmet off because he couldn’t breathe with it on and he’d had to vomit just to purge the anxiety from his system; when he’d been lingering in medical too long from his injuries and Poe told him he wasn’t ready for a job. But it had never been this bad before, he’d never gotten this lost in his own head, or been this certain of his own death. The Doctor sat in a chair next to Poe and Finn resisted the urge to curl up defensively and turn his back to them. He sat up in bed to face the people who cared enough about him to put up with the disruption he’d caused tonight. If there were going to be consequences, Finn expected now was the time he was going to hear about them.

The Doctor explained what a panic attack was, and that a lot of people got them, that they were nothing to be ashamed of. Finn nodded even though he wasn’t sure he believed the last part, about it not being his fault. It was easier to just agree with people who outranked him, and he was pretty sure everyone outranked him here. “The best way to make them go away is for you to talk to someone, a professional, a psy. . .” there were more words that came after that but Finn didn’t hear them. All sound was swallowed up in a vacuum and time was eaten by a black hole until eventually Finn was aware that he was being told it would be arranged for tomorrow. He probably should have known an episode like this would mean a one-way trip to reprogramming. The psytechs were going to erase him and rewrite him however they wanted. Maybe he’d be less useless at being a member of the Resistance then, but also maybe not. In any case he probably wouldn’t remember. The Doctor was asking him if he was okay now. As if he could be okay when everything he was might be taken from him in less than twenty-four hours. It turned out to be a rhetorical question, as she gave him a worried, assessing glance, and told him that it was a lot for one day and not to worry too much about it. She asked if he had any questions. This was not a rhetorical question. He thought he might have shook his head, but he wasn’t sure. The doctor seemed satisfied. Questions would only make everyone more certain that he was trouble anyway.

Finn felt a crushing despair and asked everyone to go away. Poe left him, with obvious reticence. He didn’t want to leave Finn’s side when he’d had such a rough day, but this was the first and only time Finn had ever requested privacy and Poe wanted him to know that his needs would be respected. The medical staff was there if Finn needed anything, and Alina quietly promised Poe she’d stay the night shift just in case. Poe told Finn that he’d be back in the morning and to have someone come get him if he changed his mind and wanted company no matter what time it was. He heard the wracking sobs begin just as he was leaving and it took all his self-discipline just to get out the door and down the hall.

Everyone left Finn alone as he cried messily, but as quietly as he was able, into the sheets of his temporary bunk. There wasn’t enough time to mourn what would certainly be the death of a self he was just starting to come to terms with. His grief and exhaustion overwhelmed him in a barely controlled outpouring of tears. He felt powerless, trapped. Worst of all, there was nowhere to run to; the only things he cared about were here. Eventually, he cried himself to sleep, a thick inky blackness that left him paralyzed. Cold hands were in his head, Kylo Ren took his brain out and vivisected it while he and Captain Phasma watched, the laser scalpel so cold it burned. Finn woke up to screaming, cotton in his throat, and his stomach in convulsions. 

He didn’t know where he was or what was happening or if Kylo Ren was still there leaning over him in the dark with the cold laser scalpel. There was a female voice talking in an even but imploring tone, definitely not the Captain, too high and far too gentle. The voice rose in volume, trying to be heard over the screaming, out of place and disconcerting, telling him that he was awake and safe and could stop shouting now. And he realized that the person screaming was him, still it took him a few long moments to get control of himself and stop. His breath rattled in the darkness as the voice praised him for quieting down.

The voice said a name a handful of times, he shifted, felt a wall and crouched with his back to the corner so he could defend himself if he needed to. Pain shot down his back and into his legs, nearly causing the dry heaving to start up again. He didn’t dare touch his head to see if it was still gaping and open but it was pounding dully. The voice was still saying the name, and after what seemed like the hundredth time Finn was pretty sure it was his own. The Captain never would have called him that. Why wasn’t she calling him by his ID number? Because he didn’t have an ID number anymore. . .because he was a person now. . .his brain supplied sluggishly. He realized with a quiet sort of horror that it was a nightmare, that he was in medical, and that the woman was Doctor Nemes. He pressed his face into his knees and groaned low and broken. He ran hands over his perfectly intact skull, the headache was probably from stress, or screaming, or some combination of the two. He wondered how long until they sent him to the psychtechs. Was it morning yet?

The doctor tried to reassure him, promised that no one was mad at him and tried to coax him out of his stronghold in the corner without touching him. After significant prompting Finn uncoiled his body and let himself be lured out of the corner. She asked if he was still feeling sick, which he was, and if he would accept a sedative, which he wouldn’t. She brought him a half-filled cup of hot liquid that smelled cold and fresh despite its actual temperature, some sort of herb she explained, no medicine. Finn didn’t trust it, or his stomach for that matter, and merely held it between his hands breathing in the scent, not drinking it. He was grateful that there was a lot of room between the liquid and the rim of the cup, because his hands were decidedly shaky. Still the warm porcelain felt reassuring in his hands. 

Finn sat with his back pressed up against the corner and his knees pulled into his chest. The doctor asked him what he needed to feel safe. Finn looked at her blankly, like he didn’t understand what the word meant. She asked if there was anything that would make him feel more comfortable and Finn asked if he was allowed to know when they would take him off for reconditioning. It was dangerous to ask the question but at this point there was no way he was getting off without a serious mental rewiring, so it probably wouldn’t make a difference if he asked. She looked at him skeptically. “No one’s going to recondition you, Finn. It was a nightmare. It wasn’t real and now it’s over,” she explained, unequivocally.

Finn eyed her suspiciously. “You, said,” he countered, an accusatory weight to his voice. He worried about contradicting her directly, but was almost certain he’d been awake when she said they were sending him to the psytechs. Not being one hundred percent certain whether it was waking or a nightmare was almost worse than knowing his life was over and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

“Are you worried about seeing the psychologist, Finn? Is that what this is about?” she asked.

“It was real then,” he said biting back bitter disappointment, but simultaneously relieved that it had in fact happened, that he wasn’t completely crazy. Comprehension began to dawn and she got a look on her face that Finn hadn’t seen before.

“Psychologists don’t reprogram people, Finn. They just talk to them, that’s all,” she explained. He wanted to believe her, but he didn’t know if he could. He didn’t know if he could trust anyone. He couldn’t even trust himself.

“Would you feel better if Poe went with you?” she asked. He clutched his knees tighter and nodded. “Would you feel better if Poe was with you right now?” she asked. He looked kind of sick, and nodded again.

“Get Dameron down here,” Doctor Nemes ordered someone Finn hadn’t even noticed was hovering nearby. Finn could hear that she was holding back a heavy sigh, and knew that he’d disappointed her somehow. Though he wasn’t sure what he’d done. He thought maybe it was asking the question in the first place. She kept talking to him until Poe arrived, barefoot and still in his pajamas. He had Shylo in his hands and Finn was relieved to see him. 

Doctor Nemes let Poe give Finn the stuffed toy to hold onto before pulling him away for a moment, to talk to him. When he returned, Poe sat on the bed beside him, close but not touching him. “Can I put my arm around you?” he asked. Finn nodded. Poe wrapped an arm around his shoulders and guided Finn into a protective embrace. Finn breathed in the scent of him and it was grounding: resistance soap, sleep sweat, and stardust. He still had Shylo in a deathgrip in his arms and the soft material felt good under his fingers. He knew where he was. He still didn’t feel safe, but he thought he understood what the doctor meant about feeling comfortable. 

Poe rubbed his arm in soothing circles and Finn felt the muscles start to relax. “You know what they did to me on the base,” Poe told him in a whisper, so soft even the doctors wouldn’t be able to hear them. “It’s the worst thing that anyone has ever done to me. I need you to know that I would never let anyone do anything like that to you, not as long as I’m alive,” Poe vowed. Finn was having trouble finding his voice to reply. “Your mind belongs entirely to you, and no one is allowed in there. You understand? If you don’t want to talk to the doctor tomorrow, you don’t have to. No one’s gunna make you, not Doc Nemes and not me. But if you’re willing to give it a try I’ll be there the whole time, and I won’t let anything bad happen,” Poe swore to him

The idea that any part of him was actually his own property, body or mind, was new for Finn. Yet he was so overcome with relief that Poe said he didn’t have to go, that he didn’t dwell on it long. He was tempted to refuse just to make sure it wasn’t a lie. Yet, what Poe had said was kind and protective, and Finn found to his surprise, against his better judgment, that he really did trust him. “The whole time?” he confirmed, surprised that his voice didn’t shake. 

“Yeah buddy, the whole time,” he confirmed with a note of pride at the unspoken fact that Finn had made the braver decision. That alone made the choice almost worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the awesome comments! This work has grown to almost 40,000 words, with three more chapters than I'd initially written. It will now be 14 chapters long, a change you'll see reflected up top. I never imagined that would be the case when I started posting it. It's so great hearing from everyone. I hope you all enjoyed the latest chapter.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn starts therapy, learning some new skills, having some fun experiences, and unpacking some dangerous baggage he's been carrying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings on this chapter for severe anxiety, guilt, depression, and suicidal ideation.

The events at the party seemed to open the floodgates. Panic attacks became a regular part of Finn’s existence, even though Poe never pushed him to go to the rec room again, and he barely left their quarters except for work, and his trips to see his doctors. He wouldn’t have left them at all, except the only thing that scared him worse than falling prey to a panic attack in the kitchens in front of Meeko, or the halls in front of a gawking audience, was not pulling his own weight around the base. In addition to the anxiety that Finn had lived with before, a nagging, semi-constant background noise that colored his perception of every moment, he now dreaded the possibility of panic attacks at all times. Fear of the attacks had, in fact, been strong enough to trigger them on several occasions.

Finn was used to being afraid of his own mind, especially since it had often been decidedly contrary despite his best attempt to subdue his thoughts. But this was worse; this was different; it couldn’t be buried or hidden. It set its own agenda, with no regard for his safety or his dignity.

The psychologist that he had so dreaded was not nearly as frightening as he’d at first suspected. Yet, even seeing him for several sessions, he still couldn’t trust the man enough to go without Poe by his side. The doctor was a skinny freckle-faced man who told Finn to call him Jolon, and had a pinched nasal tone of voice that was nothing like the smooth, lilting, almost-melodic baritone of the treacherous psytechs. Though Jolon would obviously never make a skilled orator, his slightly grating modulation helped Finn to believe that he maybe wasn’t planning to tinker with Finn’s brain absent his consent. Despite his reservations, Finn decided that Jolon was nice, which didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t dangerous also, but at least it was a start.

The doctor explained that the panic attacks and the nightmares might be an indication that Finn was starting to feel safe enough to process everything that had happened to him. That didn’t make Finn any more comfortable with them. The doctor listened to him, as he talked about his time as a Trooper, about the oppressive atmosphere of terror, of always being on alert, never certain of anything. Though he didn’t push Finn to talk about things he was pretty sure he couldn’t bear to discuss, like the slaughter on Jakku, the battle with Kylo Ren, the loss of Rey, or some of the terrible things he’d done as a Trooper, things he hadn’t admitted to anyone, even Poe. 

Jolon gave him a list of exercises to practice, things like breathing with his diaphragm; standing with his back to a wall and counting down slowly from one hundred; squeezing a cold pack and focusing on how it felt in his hand. Finn felt stupid doing it but found that the practice paid off when he was panicking in earnest. The doctor asked him to find a few things that helped ground him when he was anxious, things he could keep with him wherever he went. He voiced reticence about carrying Shylo around with him where other people could see and the doctor gave him a little beanbag that fit in his pocket, something soft he could squeeze in the palm of his hand. It wasn’t nearly as good, but it was better than nothing.

The doctor asked him to make lists. First, it was a list of differences between life here and life on Starkiller Base. They talked about it together and Finn was surprised at just how many things he’d come up with. It ranged from little things like showers with soap and water instead of the dry chemical kind, to big differences like that people weren’t decommissioned when they were sick or hurt. He kept the list in his pocket with his beanbag on Jolon’s suggestion and referred to it when he started worrying that bad things like the ones he could have reasonably expected before, would happen to him here. He was surprised how comforting it was to have the evidence of the differences in a tangible form, on paper, where he could take it out anytime he felt insecure.

The next list was of things he wasn’t sure about, or thought might be true about life here, but hadn’t seen concrete evidence for. If he wasn’t one hundred percent sure of something, the doctor instructed, it belonged on the list. This one was several pages in length, and again ranged from the trivial to the essential. The list included his reservations about whether psychologists and psytechs were fundamentally different. He expected the doctor to be mad about it, and was brave enough to include it only because he knew Poe would be at his side. Yet, when it came time to review the list the doctor treated that bullet point with the same calm, non-judgmental consideration as every other item. 

The doctor explained, that as they reviewed each list item, they would not take anything as a given and would together try to identify evidence to support or refute each belief. When Finn was satisfied, and only when Finn was satisfied, that he was sure of the truth or falsity of his beliefs, he would cross them off the belief list and decide whether or not the statements belonged on the first list, the one of differences between Starkiller Base and here. To his surprise, the doctor let him and Poe do most of the talking, jumping in only to point out things they might have forgotten, or overlooked. It took the entire hour and they hadn’t even worked out half the things he wasn’t sure of. But by the end of the session his first list, of differences, was longer, and included the bit about psychologists. After that he told Poe he didn’t have to come to sessions anymore if he didn’t want to. More surprisingly, he actually meant it.

It took two more sessions until everything was crossed off the second list. Poe came into one more appointment with him, then came with him to the next one but waited out in the hall until he was finished. After that he walked Finn to appointments and made sure that Finn knew how to find him if he was needed, but went off to do his own thing until Finn was done. The doctor asked him to make two more lists, one of things that frightened him – this was an easy assignment – and another of things that brought him pleasure – that was more complicated. 

The frightened list was long and included: panic attacks, the First Order – Kylo Ren and Captain Phasma especially, being captured, open spaces, crowded places, reconditioning, decommissioning, not knowing what was expected of him, ships crashing, his friends dying – especially Poe and especially when he was out flying missions, people realizing he didn’t belong here, not belonging here, thinking the wrong things, not knowing what the wrong things to think were, not knowing the rules, not pulling his weight, and about a dozen other items that all more or less had to do with his own perceived inadequacies and the likelihood that he would disappoint people. 

The pleasure list included fruit, wearing Poe’s jacket, and making his friends proud of him. They talked a little bit about the frightened list, and some ways to confront the less dangerous fears, but mostly tabled that for another time, and to Finn’s surprise spent much more time on the considerably shorter list. 

In a seeming non-sequitor, the doctor asked him questions about how his body felt when he was happy. The doctor asked him to describe physical sensations he associated with different feelings. Finn found himself having to think very hard before he could answer. The only exception was fear, which Finn could describe with painful clarity. However, it wasn't the quiet anxiety of a prickle on the back of his neck or a slight squirming in his stomach, that Finn detailed, but the explosive, all-possessing symptoms of terror that accompanied a fight or flight response, pounding heart, a Tie Fighter on his chest, his body on fire, gagging and retching. It seemed to Jolon that Finn oscillated between blocking out and ignoring physiological emotional cues and being completely lost in them. It was something they would have to work on.

The doctor asked him how his body felt at that exact moment, and he said it felt okay. He wasn’t throwing up, his heart wasn’t beating out of his chest, and his back wasn’t in agonizing spasms, so he really couldn’t complain. The doctor observed that he seemed stressed. Finn thought about it and shrugged. “Finn, on a scale of zero to ten, where zero is no stress at all and ten is the most scared you’ve ever been, where would you say you are right now?” the Doctor asked.

Finn frowned, and shrugged. “Probably a two before you asked, now, I don’t know, a three?” Finn suggested.

The doctor asked him to describe how his shoulders and neck felt. “Tight?” he asked. It definitely came out sounding like a question, as though he wasn’t sure, which was weird that he thought the doctor would have a better idea of how his shoulders felt than he did himself. “And your lower back?” Jolon asked. “Stiff,” he replied, a little more readily. Now that the doctor pointed it out, Finn realized that even though he was sitting on the couch he wasn’t leaning back into it like the doctor was leaning back into his chair. He was sitting up straight, back not touching the upholstery. Why hadn’t he noticed that before? 

“What do you think that means about how you feel emotionally?” the doctor asked patiently.

Finn looked frustrated. “I don’t know,” he replied.

“Finn can you remember a time, ever, when your stress level was a one or a zero?” the doctor asked. Finn shifted uncomfortably. 

“No.” 

There was a long pause, and the doctor let it linger, since Finn seemed to be deciding whether or not to voice a thought that Jolon suspected might be important but difficult to articulate. “I mean, when I see other people, I think, I’m not like them. They all seem so much less distracted. Or maybe they’re just faking it, the way I do, but better, and their brain is constantly buzzing too. It never seemed safe to ask,” he paused, thoughts turned momentarily inward. Jolon wondered if Finn was waiting for him to provide some secret insight, he didn’t have, into the human mind, or perhaps to tell him he was not crazy. The Doctor decided not to elaborate on what the other people’s brains felt like, worried he’d leave Finn feeling further alienated from the remainder of the human race no matter his answer. 

Fin saved him the trouble of a response by continuing. “Not being scared or worried or stressed at all, I can’t picture that. . .I guess. . .I guess. . .it’s truer to say I’m somewhere between a six and a ten all the time. Still, it’s not so bad. I mean a _six_ , I could survive if it was always like that,” he admitted. The doctor noted that Finn wasn’t talking about happiness or pleasure, instead communicating in the framework of contentment with what was livable. They had a long way to go.

“When was the last time you remember your muscles being relaxed?” the doctor asked, when it seemed clear that getting Finn to connect emotions with physical sensations was something they would have to work on over time. For now, Jolon supposed treating the symptoms might be worthwhile. Finn thought hard about it. He remembered those exhausting PT sessions with Kiri and the massages after; he talked about it a little and the doctor got that contemplative look on his face that suggested to Finn that he might not be the only one with homework tonight. 

The doctor sent him back to his quarters with a different kind of assignment. He’d given Finn a list of things that he might enjoy and asked him to find three worthy of the pleasure list. The doctor instructed him to pay special attention to what his body was telling him, so he’d have a better idea of what made him feel good. Finn started his exploration with the food part of the list since he had the easiest access working in the kitchen, but fruit was already on his pleasure list, and he didn’t get the same immense delight and physical good feeling out of the sweets and delicacies on the list as he thought he was supposed to. In fact some left him a little queasy or left a filmy feeling on his tongue since he was still so unaccustomed to consuming fats.

After that he hit a bit of a roadblock. None of the things on the list really seemed to do much for him. They didn’t make things worse, some were kind of interesting, but they didn’t fill him with pleasure either, which was supposed to be the point. Plus some of the things he just didn’t have access to. Eventually he had to ask for help. “Where do you find music?” Finn asked. 

Poe frowned at him, “You’re going to have to be a little more specific, pal.”

“Well I’m supposed to see if I like music except I don’t have any and they didn’t exactly teach us how to play instruments in Storm Trooper training,” Finn explained, a little self-consciously. 

“So anything will do?” Poe asked. Finn nodded. Poe dug up an old holo of a concert and Finn curled up in their bed, starting the holo and closing his eyes. It was his first real experience with music outside of Poe’s singing or the horrifying cacophony of the party. It captured the entirety of his attention and he felt it like it was inside of him. It made his body feel full and warm, made his chest feel swollen, but in a good way. Finn scrawled “Music” carefully on the pleasure list. 

Next he dug up some colored pencils and paper from one of the offices. Drawing was another suggestion on the list. Within a few minutes it was exceptionally clear that Finn was really bad at it. After nearly half an hour, Poe glanced over his shoulder and asked him what had inspired him to draw a Blurrg. Finn started laughing so hard that it was long minutes before he could choke out an answer. “That’s supposed to be you!” he replied, once he gained a semblance of control back. “I was drawing when we met,” Finn admitted. Poe cracked up too and that just got Finn started up again and it took a long, long time for either of them to be able to stop laughing. Just looking at one another, or the drawing, seemed to be enough for them to dissolve into another fit of uncontrollable hysterics. When they’d laughed themselves out Finn was exhausted and his chest and stomach ached – but it was a very good ache. Poe asked if he could keep the drawing. Finn signed and dated it as though it was a real work of art and it was tucked away in one of Poe’s drawers. 

“Laughing with my Friends” Finn scribbled below “Music” on the Pleasure list. It wasn’t on the paper the doctor had given him, but he knew it fit the spirit of the exercise. The willing departure from the rules showed a decided improvement, and Finn knew it. He also knew that what he’d written wasn’t his first impulse either. Somehow he was pretty sure the doctor would find the list item “Poe’s Laugh,” just as confounding as Finn did himself.

He continued down the list. One of the items was taking a walk outside, which Finn immediately dismissed as a bad idea. Poe, however, suggested they try stargazing. He took Finn’s hand and led him to the flight deck, quickly logging something on the computer, and then motioning for Finn to suit up and get in the ship. He did as he was told, and neither said anything when Finn didn’t go near the helmets. They weren’t expecting combat anyway. This was a purely recreational flight. Poe flew them smoothly out of the base, and up out of the lower atmosphere. It was the first time Finn had been in a ship since the medical transport and he forgot how safe they made him feel. In a ship there was no observation but ground control, not a soul who could reach him. The darkness surrounded them on all sides once they were in open space, but the tight enclosed surroundings of the ship helped to alleviate his discomfort almost completely. For the first time in ages Finn truly felt like he belonged somewhere. 

Poe put the ship on automatic, allowing them to just drift smoothly like space debris, and climbed into the narrow area beside Finn. Finn put an arm around him and Poe rested his head on Finn’s shoulder. It was remarkably comfortable. They both knew a lot about astronomy considering their respective training so instead of one showing the other anything they talked about constellations they liked, and tried to make imaginary shapes out of the stars. Poe told him some of the more fanciful astrological stories that the First Order predictably thought were irrelevant for soldiers to learn. Finn countered with one or two of the fanciful memory aids he and his fellows had come up with. They sat out in the ship for a while longer, passing some of it in comfortable silence, until one or the other had some observation to make. Finn took the list from his pocket and carefully penned “Stargazing” under “Laughing with my Friends” before Poe took them back in for landing.

Two days later, Jolon congratulated Finn on a job well done with the previous exercise, and he encouraged Finn to continue adding things that made him happy to the list and to refer back to it when he was having a bad day and needed something to make him feel better. He also expressed his pride that Finn had come up with something he hadn’t thought of. Then they segued into one of the topics they’d only touched on in the previous session. He asked Finn how he felt about being touched. This was a longer conversation than the doctor anticipated. They had to separate it out into different kinds of touch. 

They started with the kinds that Finn definitely knew he didn’t like. Fighting, Finn didn’t like that since it usually hurt. It was also telling that it was the very first kind of touch Finn thought of when asked the question about touch in general. He had been raised on violence, structured, planned, persistent violence. Yet sparring was one of the few ways that physical contact had been permitted, even encouraged as he was growing up. Non-regulation touch from strangers and acquaintances, he wasn’t a fan of that either, and explained that it was part of what had brought on the really bad panic attack at the party. Touch when he was freaking out, also bad, no matter who it came from, even if it was reasonable or well-intentioned. 

The doctor asked him if there were any kinds of touch he liked. He was kind of embarrassed to admit it but the first thing that came to mind was the night Poe had a nightmare and let Finn wrap arms around him and they fell asleep like that. While he’d divulged some of his own secrets he didn’t know how Poe would feel about him sharing the circumstances of the nightmare with a stranger. Loyalty won out. He muttered something about hugging, but only from someone he really trusted. The doctor nodded encouragingly. He gave the example of when Poe came back after a mission or when he got the job in the kitchen though it was obvious that his mind was on something else. When the doctor asked him if he liked more than hugging and, puzzled, Finn confessed he didn’t know what that meant, the doctor didn't press him further. 

He gained a little more confidence in his answers. He liked it when Meeko touched his cheek that time in the kitchen, and sometimes when Jess or Snap touched him in a friendly kind of way, though he noted that it sometimes still made him nervous if people were watching. He liked the massages he got from Kiri back when he’d been doing PT. He liked it when BB-8 touched him, rolling into his leg like a pet looking for attention. That had been happening much more lately. BB-8 was with him more often than with Poe, and Finn was finally starting to pick up the droid language.

To his delight the doctor explained that he’d had a discussion with Kiri and that they agreed adding some light exercise followed by therapeutic massage back into his routine was a good idea. To Finn’s astonishment, the first two appointments back with Kiri showed him that the tension was much easier to notice after it had gone. The absence of tension was so novel, that Finn was far more aware of it than he’d ever been of the discomfort. It wasn’t just his muscles that benefitted either. The headaches that had become so ubiquitous that they seemed not to warrant a mention, let up, and his stomach still often a minefield, seemed far more accommodating of his whims. 

The workouts they assigned him were never strenuous, an hour jogging on a treadmill, or some light weightlifting. Still, it made him feel aware of his body, conscious of its capabilities. It made him feel healthy. Jolon said it was also good for his brain chemistry, but Finn didn’t know enough to comment on that.

Finally, the doctor asked him to make a list of things he wanted for himself in the future. It was the first assignment Finn couldn’t complete. The time leading up to the appointment was marked with mounting anxiety. He had a panic attack over knowing he was going to have to show up empty handed, spent the two hours before his appointment purging his stomach of even the memory of food, and was unable to leave their quarters when it was time for him to attend the session even though it had been a half an hour since he’d last been sick and Poe promised to go in with him. Poe called the doctor on the comm and told him Finn wasn’t feeling too well. The next day he couldn’t seem to get himself over the threshold of their quarters to go down to the kitchen and Poe bailed on a mission because he was too worried to leave his friend. Missing work seemed to be a breaking point of some kind that left Finn completely paralyzed, unable to leave their room. He spent the time sick, pacing, disconnected, unable to concentrate on anything, picking up items only to put them down a moment later. Poe wanted to take his hand and help settle him, but Finn cringed at being touched. They couldn’t share the bed, which didn’t matter much, because Finn was too wound up to sleep anyway. Poe wasn’t getting much rest either.

On the third day when Finn admitted he wasn’t going to be able to leave their quarters to go to his next counseling session, Jolon came to him instead and sat on the bathroom floor with him, talking him through yet another panic attack in his dependable nasal voice. Poe sat in the next room, face in his hands, exhausted and grateful for the help. Things had been going well for a while. Now Poe felt like he was losing him all over again, except this time to something way more painful than the coma. When Finn had calmed down enough, the doctor asked if he could pinpoint what had changed at the beginning of the week. Finn slid the crumpled empty sheet of paper across the floor toward him. Jolon picked it up and turned it over. The paper was blank on both sides. “I don’t understand Finn, can you help me out?” he implored. 

“I couldn’t do what you asked,” Finn admitted. This scenario was straight off the fear list, implicating several of the ones about disappointing people. 

“I’m sorry,” the doctor replied, looking slightly crestfallen. “I should have explained at the beginning of these exercises that if you ever ran into difficulty, that was just fine, and we can always work on them together. Figuring out why you’re having trouble with the list might be even more important than coming up with the list itself,” he confessed. 

Finn had his arms wrapped around his knees, his back ached, everything ached. His body was spent. No one could exist at this level of anxiety and despair forever. Something had to give. “Do you know what made his assignment so challenging?” the doctor asked. “It’s okay if you don’t, but if you do it might help us get you back on the path to where you were,” Jolon offered. Finn sat in silence for a long time, breathing around his nausea, trying to decide whether he was going to speak at all, and if so what he might say. It helped, the way Jolon talked about this situation like they were in it together, like it was a shared mission, rather than Finn breaking down and failing to function like a rusted out sand cruiser. 

“I don’t deserve a future,” Finn confessed. The reality hadn’t occurred to him until he sat down to write the list and realized just how much he wasn’t entitled to want anything for himself. He’d been so deeply in survival mode, so busy running from the past and hiding from the present, that future planning hadn’t been a priority at all. Believing that he could covet something for himself, ambitions of his own, seemed too big, too unreal and unreasonable, greedy. He already had more than he deserved. The exercise had drudged up all kinds of deeply held guilt he hadn’t had time for until now.

“Why would you think that Finn?” the doctor asked softly, matching Finn’s confidential tone. 

In a rush, a horrible choked, whisper, he confessed the secrets he’d been keeping. He admitted he’d informed on his fellow Troopers, probably gotten one or two of them sent to reprogramming when he was a kid, before he really knew better – not that that was an excuse; that he’d watched the slaughter on Jakku and had done nothing to stop it, he described the look on the face of the woman he’d almost shot, he would haunt her nightmares Finn knew; he admitted that while he hadn’t pulled the trigger, it had been a close thing, his primary concern had been to save his own skin. He confessed that he’d betrayed everyone he’d ever known, including all the people who were just like him, who had never had a choice in their lot in life at all. He wondered how many of them had suffered after he escaped because of the stunt he pulled. He’d killed other Troopers in those final battles, maybe kids he’d grown up with. He admitted that even thinking of what he’d done to the other Troopers as betrayal was betraying all the people who were so nice to him now, people who shouldn’t be. He was worse than useless to the Resistance, a drain on resources, and not even sure what he believed. He admitted that he wasn’t a hero, and he wished people would stop thinking it was true, no matter what Poe and the General said. That he’d been entirely ready to abandon Rey on Takodana and had failed her at Starkiller Base. That even now, even after everything he’d gone through, his motivations usually just had to do with not wanting to be so scared anymore. He confessed his part in furthering the operations of a homicidal, genocidal, xenocidal organization responsible for countless deaths. Maybe he didn’t shoot anyone himself, but he kept them running, functioning, so that others could. “I am responsible,” he confessed.

The doctor, taken aback, asked him if he was thinking about suicide. The question wasn’t as much of a surprise as it might have been. He hadn’t been consciously planning anything, hell he didn’t have the energy. But if he was honest with himself, he spent a lot of time thinking about dying, especially since he usually felt like he was during panic attacks or expected he would die soon when the First Order inevitably captured him. In the moment, when he couldn’t breathe and he thought his heart might explode, he fought for life with every breath but in the hours and days afterward, he sometimes wished that his body would just get it over with. Logically he knew he couldn’t die from a panic attack, but feeling like he was dying over and over again had to be worse than it just happening once and for all. 

“I can’t pretend to be a person. I’m just too tired,” he confessed. 

“You don’t have to pretend to be anything, Finn. You’re fine just as you are.”

“A killer?” the reply was derisive, full of venom, and nearly automatic. The flash of anger was hot and brief. His body didn’t have the energy to sustain it. It drained out of him as quickly as it had appeared, like water through a sieve. “That’s all they ever trained me to be.”

“I think you’ve shown everyone that you’re much more than that. You have nothing more to prove. We all believe you.” 

“It was easier when no one cared.”

“I believe that. But happier? Safer?” 

He thought about the way Rey looked at him when he came back for her on Starkiller Base. He thought about the way Poe looked at him always, no matter what. He thought about the times Poe told him he was important in word and in deed and the times when Snap and Jess and Meeko and the doctors treated him like someone who actually was. He hung his head. “No. Not that,” he agreed.

“Guilt is what good people feel when bad things happen and they can’t stop them, sometimes even when it isn’t their fault. When you’re lying in bed not sleeping, beating yourself up tonight, I want you to think about what that guilt you’re feeling says about who you are.” The doctor instructed him. Finn shrugged and then nodded his assent. “Finn, I really need to know if you’re thinking about hurting yourself,” the doctor added plainly.

“No,” he replied “No, I’m not.” Saying it made him feel like a coward.

“If you start thinking about it I want you to talk it through with me, day or night,” he requested. Finn nodded, because he couldn’t bear to disappoint Jolon for a second time in the same day.

On the way out Jolon told Poe to look out for him. That was all. No explicit warnings or breaches of confidence. Just four words. It was enough. It was the first night in a while that Finn managed to get in bed with him and Poe wrapped around him like a second skin. Holding him, breathing him in like he might blow away on a wisp of smoke. “Finn, you are the most important person in my life. You know that, right?” Poe asked his voice deadly grave. Finn didn’t know what to say, so he turned into Poe’s embrace and buried his head in Poe’s collarbone, letting Poe lay there and rub his back until he finally fell asleep. Poe didn’t sleep a wink that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this left off in a dark place. Sorry about that guys. I promise, in the next few chapters things start to turn around for Finn. At the moment I'm considering a sequel, but also a companion piece where this period of time is written from Poe's perspective. Any interest?


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn starts moving forward and Poe finds a way to help him make some new friends.

The next day, two hours after Finn awoke, Jolon was waiting outside their quarters. “We’re going down to the end of the hall today,” Jolon informed him calmly. Finn fixed him with a worried, skeptical look. “We’ve got as much time as we need, but it’s going to get done,” Jolon explained patiently, not a request or a question, a simple factual statement. “Think about it as a mission if that helps,” he suggested. It definitely didn’t. Jolon could see that the analogy wasn’t working for him and dropped it immediately. Finn backed away a few paces, as though he expected the waif of a man to try and bodily drag him over the threshold of the room, and was legitimately concerned about it. “I’m not going to touch you,” Jolon promised him, upon seeing his fear. Jolon spent nearly an hour talking him through relaxation exercises. Poe brought them some hot drinks, which they sipped, while they talked about nothing in particular. 

Jolon asked him how he was feeling. “Not ready” he replied at once. Jolon asked him how his body was feeling. “Less sick, my stomach isn’t so bad, but still tense all over,” Jolon nodded. 

“What’s your worst fear about us going to the end of the hall and back?” Jolon asked. 

“I’m going to have a panic attack, and there will be people out there, and they’ll see me lose it,” Finn confessed. 

“Okay, and then what?” Jolon asked, with a serene sort of calm that Finn found so alien he was as baffled as he was resentful of it. 

“That’s it, just that” Finn replied, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. 

Jolon nodded. “So let’s say you have a panic attack and there are some people out in the hall. If that happens I’ll talk you through it, some people will see us talking, maybe see that you’re upset, but move onto whatever else they have to do. If anyone gets too close I’ll tell them to go away. And we’ll have done it, and won’t have to worry about it anymore for a while,” Jolon explained. Finn seemed wary but couldn’t help but consider the logic in it. 

Jolon talked him through another exercise, having him intentionally tense every muscle in his body one at a time, hold the tension, and then once he was shaking with it, consciously let it all go. It was like his body had let out a sigh. “Alright, let’s go,” Jolon said, standing up. Finn stood and edged toward the door. His body seemed to lock up and he froze. Jolon walked a few paces ahead, stood in the doorway blocking the view of the hall and turned around to face him. “You’re doing well, Finn, don’t worry about the door, just come to me,” Jolon instructed. It was easier, focusing on walking the few steps to Jolon rather than the intimidating threshold or the unbearably long distance of the hall. Jolon backed up a couple of steps and Finn walked to him, they repeated it three or four times until Jolon asked if he was comfortable trying it side by side. 

To his surprise they were already a fair amount of the way down the hall. Finn nodded, and Jolon took up a position on his exposed side. The wall on one side and Jolon on the other protected him. Still he felt the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. Someone passed them in the hall, oblivious. Finn tensed. “You’re doing great,” Jolon told him, reminding him to breathe. They made it to the end of the hall. When they got back Finn was exhausted. Jolon let him sleep, but told him he was due for an appointment that night, and that he’d be here to pick him up some six hours later. They would go down to Jolon’s office together.

It worked. It was still hard, but Finn was managing some interaction with the world outside of his room. Jolon told him to make sure he went to work and his appointments every day even if he could only handle staying for a little while, or had to come in late. Everyone would understand, and no one would be mad, but he couldn’t be allowed to retreat again, or it would become even more difficult to get back into the rhythms of his life. Getting back to work was far harder once he’d stopped. Getting back to everything was harder once he’d stopped. Finn worked half days in the kitchen for a while after that, helping out with the mellower lunch service, and going to see Kiri in the afternoons. The big firm hands massaged the tension out of his muscles, and the man’s demeanor was so calmly balanced and easily open, whatever the situation, that Finn could swear a little of it seemed to rub off, or at least bolster him. 

He was soon back to full days in the kitchen. Once he was there it was easier to focus on what he was doing and lose himself in his daily tasks. Finn made himself useful, and was learning the “culinary arts” under the tutelage of Meeko, who proved an enthusiastic yet patient teacher. He wasn’t especially innately skilled, but he was a quick learner and genuinely curious about everything. That didn’t mean the attacks stopped. But he was doing a little bit better managing them, coming out of them more quickly, and learning to dread them just a little bit less as the most important people in his life learned what to do when they happened and proved they would never hold the momentary lapses against him. 

The first time the anxiety had crept up on him in the kitchens was during a relatively mild prep for lunch service, seemingly out of nowhere. His hands shook so badly that he couldn’t hold a knife and he’d white knuckled the counter breathing in shallow rasping gulps. Meeko told him to sit down before he fell over and got him some cool water to sip on, turning off the heat under the food most likely to burn so they could take the time they needed to address the current situation. It took a little while, but it passed, it always did. The shame afterwards lingered far longer. 

Finn apologized about a thousand times for the disturbance, for the disruption, for the delay. He offered not to come back until he could control the panic attacks. Meeko seemed sympathetic, but unimpressed with his offers to absent himself. “Ziek, you are not the only refugee,” Meeko informed him brusque, but warm. Finn had never thought of himself that way before, as a refugee. As far as Finn knew, he was the only Storm Trooper ever to defect, but it was nice to think of himself as not the only person who felt the way he did. And was he really all that different? They were all fleeing from an unsafe home, all looking for a place to belong. “For people like us, there’s not always enough sleep time for the nightmares, but when they’re done we wake up and go back to work,” Meeko explained staunchly. His breathing had returned to normal and he seemed tense but in control and aware of his surroundings. Meeko patted him on the cheek like they had that first day in the kitchens, “You’re a good boy, now stop dawdling,” Meeko instructed patiently. He got back up, and they did just that. The motion seemed to help him come out of it more quickly, yet Meeko still kept a hawk-like eye on him the rest of the day, carefully redirecting his attention anytime his anxiety started mounting. 

On bad days Meeko gave him clear directions and let him follow orders like a soldier. On good days they told him to abandon the recipes and come up with something new. Meeko tried whatever he came up with and praised him for experimenting, even when they both agreed the outcome wasn’t especially tasty. He felt accomplished when he made something on his own. When he and Meeko agreed a dish was good, he brought the leftovers for Poe to try. When Poe groaned with delight and praised his work he could see why people valued creativity. 

Working with the psychologist was hard, and unpleasant. He and Jolon started talking about the things they had been avoiding. Together they unpacked each awful guilty secret that Finn had confessed that day in the bathroom. The doctor didn’t judge him even as Finn assigned blame to himself for slights and betrayals real and imagined. Jolon was patient, tried to refocus his thoughts in a more productive direction, tried to help him process his guilt. Jolon suggested that he might start to feel better if he took on a project that involved nurturing something, a garden or a pet. 

He asked a few cursory questions about Doctor Nemes’ garden. Yet remembered his nightmarish back problems when he’d tried digging out the ducts. He wasn’t so sure it was a great idea. Finn learned that animals around the base were rare. Finn thought he might like one, like Shylo except living and breathing, capable of caring for him back, but the lack of access made it mostly a pipe dream. 

He tried to take care of Poe, in his own way, making sure he ate and slept and such when he was flying a lot. When Poe woke up with bad dreams Finn always went out of his way to soothe him, and Poe went for the liquor bottle far less often now. Still, he was pretty sure that wasn’t what the doctor had had in mind. Besides he could never repay Poe all the kindness he’d been given. Jolon told him not to worry too much about it. 

Poe played personal bodyguard, even though Finn said he didn’t have to. Finn figured they could both tell just how much he didn’t really mean it. It took three more sessions before Finn could admit that he saw himself turning a corner, and coming out of one of the worst periods of his life. It took four before Poe was willing to leave on a real mission. Poe was absurdly grateful for the upward trajectory. Every panic attack took a chunk out of Poe’s soul, and the waiting was almost as hard on him as it was on Finn. The respite was sorely needed, especially if he was going to fly with any kind of focus or precision. Yet, he still found himself sad that Finn had cut himself off from everyone, all his friends, the people who cared about him, or would if they knew him well enough to realize how worth it he was. 

After the panic attack that crippled Finn at the party, and all the ones that followed in its wake, Poe had considered Finn’s situation at length. He realized now how unfair he’d been. He tried to think about things from Finn’s perspective, considering what it was that Finn might need in order to be comfortable making friends. Mere exposure to as many people as physically possible, obviously wasn’t it. Despite not having said much, the things he had said were fairly revealing, and Poe had caught sight of the “Fears List” once when Finn had left it lying around. It gave him a lot of insight, even if he felt like a total asshole after he read it for invading Finn’s privacy. Finn was used to a lot of rules around social interaction. Poe considered what sorts of social interaction he could teach Finn that followed a set of predictable rules. Immediately he came up with a few ideas. 

“Hey Finn,” he said, one day while they were folding piles of laundry on the bed they shared. Finn acknowledged him with a non-committal sound that showed he was listening. “I was thinking, how would you like to learn to play cards?” he asked. Finn looked up and raised an eyebrow at him. He shrugged. “Okay,” he agreed. 

“Great, it’s a good way to meet people, and Jess and Snap like to play. But first, I was thinking you and I could try it out one afternoon and I can teach you all the rules. That way, Jess won’t rob you blind,” Poe explained. Poe had chosen their playmates carefully defaulting to Jess and Snap, who liked Finn and were willing to look the other way if Finn acted unusually. Plus if Finn started having difficulty, Poe was pretty confident he and Snap would spot it early and know how to help him out.

Finn showed a little more enthusiasm at the further explanation. He knew and liked the people Poe wanted to play with, and best of all Poe was going to teach him everything before there was the pressure of people he didn’t know quite as well. “Yeah, let’s do it,” he agreed.

As promised, they sat down on Poe’s bed together that afternoon. Despite having once been a boy, it readily became apparent as Poe tried to teach Finn several basic card games, that Finn had no concept of how to play – not just how to play cards, but how to be playful. Poe was no psychologist, and wasn’t sure whether he was actually making things better or worse, but he decided Finn would have to learn eventually. As they sat, just the two of them, he took care to teach Finn how to win, how to lose, how to talk trash playfully, what rules were really serious and which ones could be broken under the right circumstances, how to spot when someone was bluffing, and how not to take the results seriously regardless of the outcome. 

He and Poe spent hours playing different cards games laughing and joking and eating half the snacks they were supposed to be using as betting chips. Poe definitely took the weight of the blame in that respect, but Finn benefitted because he made sure to take his snacks from Poe’s pile. Poe grinned and batted his hands away when he did it, but was pleased to see that despite knowing the rules, Finn felt safe enough with him to actually test them. After several hours, when Poe was just about ready to turn in for the night, he asked Finn if he wanted another practice session before they brought in the others. “Nah,” Finn replied, draping his legs over the end of the bed, happy and almost relaxed. “You’re a good teacher. I don’t know if I’ll win, but I’m ready to play,” he conceded. Poe beamed at him, all toothy grin and fond sappy eyes. 

The four of them started having game nights twice a week in Finn and Poe’s room, then in the pilot’s quarters. They never did make it back to the rec room but it didn’t seem like much of a loss.

Finn treasured the time they spent playing. For a few blissful hours, Finn could sit with people he liked, who liked him, and interact with them in a way that didn’t stress him out. Finn always knew what would happen next, and two rounds after that, and four rounds after that. It was also a good way to watch the others talk to each other, without having to jump in, because he could go when it was his turn in order to be an active participant but didn’t necessarily have to comment on whatever they were talking about at any given moment. Slowly, he took his chances, jumping into the unstructured fun that accompanied the ordered card game. It didn’t matter that Finn didn’t win that first game, or the second, or the third. In fact, he was a pretty lousy card player. 

Being very bad at cards, Poe told him fondly, was something that would make him a lot of friends if he was a gracious loser. Unfortunately, Finn had nothing to gamble with, no personal possessions except the coat that Poe had given him and the cardboard box of donations. Finn would sooner hack off his right arm and put it in the center of a gambling table than risk losing the treasured gifts he’d been given. The four of them had taken to playing cards with candies or piles of berries. Finn usually lost his share, but Poe always let him have half of whatever he won at the end. “Benefits of being a team,” he joked, “someday I’ll lose my shirt and you’ll keep me in snacks, young Padawan,” Poe teased. Tonight, Finn and Snap had both been thoroughly cleaned out at another card game, Snap asked if they could try a board game next time, provided he taught them all how to play. They agreed to Galactic Expansion, to Snap’s obvious delight. 

As he and Poe walked back from the pilot’s quarters to their room, Finn actually found himself looking forward to learning how to play the new game. He might not see card playing as an endeavor likely to make him a boatload of acquaintances anytime soon, but that didn’t much matter because he was perfectly happy just playing with their friends. He stopped, even as the thought occurred to him. BB-8 rolled over his foot and beeped and squealed his displeasure. Somehow, Jess and Snap had become “their” friends, not Poe’s friends. When he thought about it he knew it was true, they were his friends now – Snap and Jess and BB-8.

“You okay?” Poe asked, looking for an escape route in case he wasn't. 

“What? Oh yeah. I’m good; I’m fine. I just realized they’re our friends,” Finn observed aloud.

“Of course they’re our friends,” Poe replied, his brows furrowed.

“No, no, I mean they’re both our friends. They’re my friends too,” Finn clarified.

Poe looked at him trying to figure out what part of this was news. “Right,” he said very slowly. 

“I. . .I didn’t realize that before,” Finn explained. “It’s nothing, it doesn’t matter. It’s just I’m glad that they are. That’s all,” Finn stammered. Poe smiled, the contemplative, sort-of-sad kind and put an arm around his shoulders as they walked the rest of the way back to their quarters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note there's a little extra available here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6709159 
> 
>  
> 
> I hope you enjoy. I love reading all your comments so please keep them coming. I've officially turned it into a series and have started work on the sequel and Poe's companion piece.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn discovers desire and has to learn to accept it since, with Poe around, it doesn't seem to be going away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Awkward sexual situations.

While he still experienced some pain from the back wound and the physical symptoms of extreme stress, the fiercest agony was becoming a memory. He had friends, Poe, a job, he was making progress in therapy. It shouldn’t surprise him then, that his body took the relative calm as an opportunity to find another way to betray him. There was something decidedly wrong with his groin. He wondered if he’d strained a muscle somehow. Sometimes he was perfectly fine and other times the muscles would spasm and the discomfort was inescapable and nearly maddening. Like the panic attacks it was visible and hiding it was inconvenient, uncomfortable, and frankly more than a little distracting. He decided that he’d need to head down to medical as soon as he was able.

He went to the ward late, after dinner service had concluded. Poe had invited him to an unscheduled game of cards with Snap and Jess, but he decided it was high time he get his health situation resolved. He encouraged Poe to go and told him he’d see him later that night, or maybe even join them a little later if he felt like it. It depended on whether they could fix him up quickly and send him on his way. He’d expected to be seen by one of the bots, but Doctor Nemes, was seeing to a pilot that had just been stabilized. She had blood on her clothes, and a tired expression on her face. Despite her appearance she favored him with a smile. “What can I do for you, Finn?” she asked softly, so as not to disturb the man who seemed to be resting. “Back’s not acting up I hope.” 

“Nah, it’s not that, but I have a medical issue,” he explained. “I can come back if it’s not a good time, I don’t think it’s life-threatening,” he added. She shook her head and welcomed him in, pulling the curtain between the sleeping pilot, and an empty cot. He ambled up onto it. 

“What seems to be the matter?” she asked.

“I think there’s something off with a muscle in my groin. Sometimes it’s just fine, but occasionally I’ve been getting these spells where the muscles go rigid, and swell, and get warm, and are really sensitive. It’s not painful exactly but it’s really uncomfortable, and it’s never happened before. Like I said I don’t think it’s too serious, it’s definitely not as bad as the muscle spasms in my back, but if you could give me something to make them go away that would be great,” he explained.

The woman regarded him calmly. She was a consummate professional and didn’t blush or laugh. Not that Finn would have understood it if she had. “Why don’t you take your clothes off and I’ll do a quick exam to make sure everything’s normal. I’m going to pull your chart, while you undress,” she explained, with a polite detachment. He began to take off and fold his clothes, taking particular care with the worn, patched leather jacket, which was hung preciously over a chair back. The woman returned promptly thumbing through his early admission records, seeking out his bloodwork. She explained what she was going to do before she touched him. As she manipulated the glands and muscles he felt the hardening tension – what he’d come to think of as a muscle spasm. “See! That’s what I’m talking about,” he declared vindicated. She nodded understandingly. “Alright Finn, you can put your clothes back on now, and then we’ll discuss the diagnosis,” she reassured him. 

He scrunched up his eyebrows, “Is it that serious?” he asked, caught a bit off guard by her demeanor. 

She allowed herself a small smile, full of a protective fondness he hadn’t expected. People felt that way about things they’d rescued. He’d rescued Poe, and he knew the fond protective feelings he felt toward the man. Doctor Nemes had rescued him more times than he could count. He never considered that the doctor might feel a similar affectionate beholdeness toward him, but he considered it now. He’d been suspicious of her, ungrateful, probably tiring. It was a relief to see that she still seemed to like him. Though Finn couldn’t imagine why. “No Finn, you’re just fine, but I think we should talk anyway,” she clarified. 

She stepped outside so he could put his clothes back on. Finally, after an uncomfortably long time, his muscles relaxed enough that wearing his trousers didn’t make him ache. They sat down together and the doctor poured him a hot drink. She was having one herself, presumably to stave off tiredness. She’d changed her clothes into ones that weren’t bloody. “Is the medicine in here?” he asked cautiously before sipping what appeared to be caff.

“No,” she replied plainly. “When you first came to us you had a high concentration of several chemical compounds in your blood. When you were with the First Order, did you receive any sort of injection, regularly?” she asked patiently. 

He nodded. “Sure, we got shots all the time,” he agreed, as though this was a painfully obvious thing. “I haven’t had a single one since I got here.”

“What you’re experiencing is a normal physiological reaction, which should have started around puberty, but the shots you were given prevented it. It’s possible that after a lifetime, the chemicals had a long half-life in your system or perhaps because of the stress you’ve been feeling and the pain of recovering from your physical injuries you haven’t had this reaction before,” she suggested. “I know it may seem uncomfortable, but the fact that your body is responding in this way is actually a good sign that you are recovering well,” she explained to him.

Finn seemed disheartened. He wished someday the signs of his recovery would be feeling better, instead of panic attacks, nightmares, and whatever this new problem was. “So there’s really nothing you can do about it?” he asked a little glumly. He was pleased that he wasn’t ill, and that nothing serious was wrong with him. He’d had more than enough time in medical of late, but he wished this wasn’t something he had to put up with. It really was a nuisance. It made him feel weird, and left him vaguely discomfited, in a more than physical way.

“There are things you can do to relieve some of the pressure,” she explained clinically. “For now, I’m going to prescribe masturbation four times a week. Then you’ll come back and see me on Monday and we’ll see how you’re doing,” she added. Her next words were tentative and measured. Finn could see she considered them carefully. “The experience you’re having, while shared by most men, is not something people are generally comfortable discussing openly with one another, so how about we agree you will come and talk to me or your psychologist before you decide to bring this up with anyone else,” she suggested kindly. 

He nodded, and listened carefully as the doctor provided an unabashed guide to the mechanics of masturbation. Finn left with a handful of personal lubricant packets and a lot of questions he’d forgotten to ask. Still he supposed he trusted the doctor enough to try following her advice.

Finding an excuse to get away from Poe was hard when he couldn’t explain why. After a few aborted attempts to steal some alone time without anyone noticing, he settled on waiting until Poe went out on a mission and trying his luck then. 

The doctor had told him to go somewhere very private. Even though he knew the room he and Poe shared was empty, it still didn’t feel private. He’d gone alone to his old abandoned quarters, which still held the cold impersonal furniture, and hadn’t been filled by a new occupant even after all this time. He tried not to be stressed, but wasn’t doing very well. He stood with his back to the wall and counted down from a hundred, and decided he felt a little bit better, so he proceeded to the next step of taking off his clothing, folding them in a neat pile and getting on the bed. 

He touched himself and felt a squirming guilt and nervousness. Even though no one had told him explicitly, no one had needed to voice the rule for Finn to know that this kind of gratuitous exploration of and attention to his body would not have been allowed when he was a Storm Trooper. His body didn’t belong to him. He was required to provide it the maintenance to keep it running and functioning at top efficiency, nothing more. 

She’d told him it would help if he thought about someone he liked. He wondered what Rey was up to in her Jedi training and pictured her swinging a lightsaber around, fierce but laughing. That’s what he hoped she was doing anyway. He’d been idly touching himself trying to illicit the response that had been so worrying to him for those days before he learned that ‘erections’ were normal, but nothing was coming of it. Was Rey not a good enough friend?

The doctor told him it should feel good. Instead he just felt stupid and vaguely worried about getting in trouble, wondering what he was doing wrong. The instructions turned themselves over in his mind again and he got back out of bed, remembering that he’d forgotten the little plastic packets she’d given him. He wished he could have his shots back so he didn’t have to worry about this. It was inefficient and he didn’t like not knowing what was going on, or once again, being out of control of his body. He fished the plastic packet out of his pocket and tore the top off working some of the substance out onto his fingers. It felt cold and oily. He definitely didn’t want to put that on himself. 

Feeling a little lost and a lot uncomfortable Finn got back on the bed and, to make himself feel better, imagined that it wasn’t the abandoned bed at all. He put his slicked up hand on his wilted, disinterested, genitals and winced at the cold gel but forced himself through it. It warmed up with a bit of stroking. It was easier pretending he was in Poe’s bed, their bed, instead of this one. He pretended that Poe was lying there next to him warming up the space between the sheets. He pulled the coverlet over himself and felt a little less exposed and silly. His body was finally, finally starting to respond. He imagined the dip in the bed, and Poe’s breath on his cheek. The tightness was palpable now, and the slippery substance had warmed up. Now it didn’t feel so bad, even though it was a little messy. 

Clumsily he stroked himself, and found that brushing his thumb against the collection of skin toward the tip of his hard length made a soft satisfied sound rumble out of his chest, so raw that it actually surprised him that it came from his body. Jolon was always trying to get him to think about how his body felt and he thought this felt good. He tried it again, explored himself, tested different strokes, and found himself imagining Poe’s voice, not saying anything in particular, just the timber of it, the warm laughing tone in it. He gripped himself more tightly and sped up a little. It felt good but also urgent, he wanted more. He imagined it was Poe’s hand on him and not his own and liked the idea of that. He was working himself harder and faster, and imagined Poe whispering encouragement to him, talking to him like he had when he was in PT, telling him to keep going, telling him he was almost there.

It was fast and inelegant, sloppy and warm. He felt the pressure build, his breathing fast and harsh, a desperate whimper in his throat as his balls drew up close to his body and every muscle seemed to go tense and he wondered if something had gone terribly wrong but it felt so urgent that he had to keep going. This is mine – he thought, as the pleasure crested and then broke in sticky shuddering jolts. That thought shocked him almost as much as the physical reaction, pleasure that took his entire body in waves and stripes of hot white on his fingers. This was his, something he had never been allowed to have before, and he’d done it. It was his quiet, private, one-man rebellion. It might not be as flashy or as principled as the New Republic’s War, but without ever even ordering him not to touch himself, through drugs, and intimidation, and a lifetime of conditioning they had taken this intimate understanding of his body away. Finally, Finn felt like he was starting to take it back. 

Finn lay there for a long while just running his fingers over his chest and stomach and arms. This is _my_ body, Finn thought. It was a stupid thing to be proud of, jerking off alone in a room thinking about his best friend but he found himself unaccountably giddy with self-satisfaction. He had a body, this body, and it _belonged_ to him.

Unfortunately, the feeling faded over the next few days as Finn experimented with thinking of other people, Rey, Snap, Jess, Jolon, near strangers and faceless imaginary men. Sometimes his attention halted on a random flash of muscle and skin, disjointed and unconnected to anyone in particular, but nothing made him feel safe and warm and _interested_ like thinking of Poe. Keeping to the routine the doctor had given him after Poe got back was harder. He hated feeling like he was sneaking off, especially when he spent all that alone time pulling Poe into these fantasies that he didn’t even fully understand and wasn’t allowed to talk about. It felt wrong. Yet, every time he did it, he ended up thinking of Poe and the warmth of their bed. 

The defiance was still there, and the pride in owning the skin, muscle, and bone he’d resided in for the better part of three decades. Yet, the more he did it, the more he thought about Poe when he wasn’t in that room alone. He found himself zoning out on parts of Poe’s body that had been of little notice before, his lips, his chest, his ass. When he was caught staring Finn found himself tense, defensive, and short-tempered from embarrassment. His friend seemed to notice, inquiring into what was bothering him, and seeming discouraged and hurt when he weakly reassured him everything was fine. It felt like a rift was growing between them and Finn hated it. It was one more thing that felt out of his control. 

At his next session with Jolon he explained about the drugs and the erections, the sneaking off, and not being allowed to tell anyone. He admitted that as much as he was happy to have this opportunity to learn that this was something his body could do that it may be better if he could just go back to the way things were, so that he and Poe could resume being friends, and life could return to its comparative simplicity. 

Jolon asked him a couple of questions about his relationship with Poe, how his body felt when Poe touched him, talked to him, paid him special attention. He did like it when Poe touched him, a hand on his shoulder when he was unsure or on his lower back when they were walking somewhere, sometimes an arm slung over his chest in the night. However, the way he’d grown up, thinking such a thing would have meant a one-way ticket to reeducation, and admitting it out loud felt dangerous, even though he knew Jolon wouldn’t hurt him. “Troopers weren’t allowed to touch without an approved purpose,” he explained. 

“But you’re not there anymore. It’s okay to like it, Finn,” he reassured him. Finn seemed to ease a bit at hearing the man call him by his name. Jolon did this very deliberately when Finn was slipping into old ways of thinking and the intentional choice was nearly always a correct one. 

“I do,” he confessed. And the doctor spent the next ten minutes talking him through his exercises to calm himself down.

Once they were back in an okay place, the Doctor explained that there were different types of relationships, and that he and Poe would get to decide together what kind they might like to have. Finn asked him to describe the different types of relationships, the responsibilities of each position and the rules they entailed. The Doctor explained that that was something he and Poe would have to talk about and figure out together, since everyone’s responsibilities and rules were different, even in the same type of relationship. Finn just found himself more confused. The doctor could see that he was having difficulty following and they spent most of the rest of the time focusing on two major types of relationships, friends and romantic partners. They discussed all the ways they were the same and all the ways they were different. Apparently one of the things that made them different was that it was encouraged to think about one’s romantic partner while masturbating, but spending too much time thinking about one’s friends might get confusing and was probably not such a good idea.

Finn asked who Jolon thought about, genuinely curious and unaware that the question was intrusive and improper. They spent the rest of the session talking about boundaries and how Finn probably ought to develop some. The doctor suggested that Finn make a list of all the things he wanted his relationship with Poe to be and then they would consider together whether the list sounded like something more appropriate for a friend or a romantic partner, that way Finn would have a clearer idea of what he wanted when he and Poe talked. Finn wasn’t sure why but the thought of having that conversation with Poe terrified him.

By the end of the week Finn was completely run down and in danger of spiraling toward another low. Alina welcomed him back in, and upon seeing his forlorn expression, pulled the curtains close around the examination bed. “Why don’t you tell me what’s the matter?” she suggested, after an exchange of brief mumbled niceties.

He shrugged. Even with his lack of social experience complaining that he didn’t think the person who was everything to him wanted to be friends anymore seemed childish and melodramatic. Besides, Poe never said he didn’t want to be friends, he just seemed quietly hurt and growing reserved. Also according to Jolon he was thinking about Poe in a way that a person wasn’t supposed to think about their friends. He tried to bury those dangerous thoughts the same way he’d buried his sympathies when he was on Starkiller Base, which directly correlated with an increase in his nightmares. This only made Poe get quieter.

“You don’t have to talk to me about it, especially if it’s not a medical concern. But if you tell me what’s the matter, maybe I can help,” she suggested kindly. 

“I did what you said,” he sighed. “And I tried thinking about a lot of different things but, I just end up thinking about Poe,” he confessed, worrying the sleeve of his jacket, and decidedly not looking at her. “I talked to Jolon about it but it didn't really make me feel better. I think Poe knows something’s bothering me, and he’s mad that I didn’t tell him what,” he added. “I’m no good at secrets. I don’t like hiding things. Can I. . .I’d really prefer to just have the shots back again.” 

“Even if it means that you feel less for Commander Dameron?” she inquired.

He blanched and looked at her with shock and confusion. “No. . .he’s my. . .” Finn searched for a word that encapsulated everything Poe was to him, apparently “friend” wasn’t allowed anymore. He had taken care of him and looked after him with a single minded focus when he’d had no one else, and kept him warm in bed at night, calmly talked him through panic attacks, and knew what he needed sometimes before he knew himself, he made Finn feel safe and wanted when he wasn’t around just by thinking about him. He was the most honorable person Finn had ever met, and never pressured him to do anything he wasn’t sure about, and gave him his name and his first ever possession. Poe was prepared to share the mission with him when Finn was ready, and Finn knew Poe loved the mission more than perhaps anything else. He was utterly selfless, exceptionally courageous, and unmatched in his kindness. What word existed that encompassed all of that? “I don’t want to feel less for him. The shots, did they do that?” 

Her eyes were sad and sympathetic. “They blocked the receptors in your brain that produce oxytocin and dopamine, among other things. They dampened down your ability to develop feelings of love, connection, and pleasure, and largely eliminated both psychological and physiological arousal and desire. We don’t give people drugs like that here; we don’t even keep them on the base. To us love, affection, and even arousal are important parts of life. They connect us to one another, and make us better and stronger.” Finn looked so terribly lost. It was hard, knowing that his brain had been invaded, chemically attacked. Could he have felt more affection for his fellow Troopers if they hadn’t drugged him? Maybe, but it was sad knowing that they never could have felt much for him back. He’d never felt anything as strong as what he felt for Poe. But what if it was it just the product of his muddled mind coming out from under the fog of the drugs?

“You know, I think Commander Dameron would be understanding if you spoke to him. Keeping it a secret is obviously upsetting to you. I’d like your permission to share your medical file with your psychologist and to have a brief conversation with Commander Dameron to explain some of what happened to you growing up, particularly the medical aspects. Would that be alright?” she asked.

He nodded again.

“And the treatment itself that we spoke about last week, aside from the troubling thoughts, it seems to be helping?” she asked.

He nodded. “It’s. . .it’s good,” Finn confessed.

“Good, keep up with it whenever you need. You can get the lubricant I gave you from the commissary when you run out. Listen, try not to worry too much about Commander Dameron. It’s perfectly normal. In fact taking that sort of interest in someone can be wonderful if they feel the same way. We’ll figure all this out. I promise you. You’re not going to lose your friend,” she assured him gently.

Finn seemed significantly less miserable than he had when he walked in and Alina counted that as a success. She grabbed a solid four hours of sleep, checked on her wounded soldier, and then went to find the Commander. She had every confidence that Finn and Poe could work this problem out together, but she feared that if Poe went into this one blind he might inadvertently harm someone he cared for deeply.

She found the Commander instructing several newer pilots in flight maneuvers on a chalk covered blackboard and watched patiently until he had completed the day’s lesson and sent them all off to double check the maintenance on their birds. “Commander Dameron, a moment of your time,” she requested. “For you Lina, anything,” he crooned fondly. 

“Such a charmer,” she replied dryly, though there was an undeniable smile on her face. “Let’s head down to my office, shall we? I have a patient I’d like to keep an eye on while we talk,” she suggested. He followed her without argument, asking after her pea plants. She attempted a little garden in her quarters. The soldier was still asleep, dead to the world, with a fine sheen of sweat on his brow. He’d kicked off the covers and the woman pulled them up to cover him once again. Best to sweat out the fever.

“I was hoping we could speak about Finn’s progress.” Poe nodded with appreciation and a bit of apprehension. “I know how close you two are and he’s come to me in the last week or so with some challenges. He mentioned you noticed his distraction and asked after him. At the time I’d advised him not to share his concerns with anyone but his medical team and I fear I might have put you both in an unnecessarily challenging situation. First, I would like to personally apologize for that,” she said.

“I’m sure you did what you thought was best. I just want him to be okay and the last week or so he’s been different, he’s been disconnected and having really bad dreams again. . .” The man’s concern was plain. “I didn’t know what to do. And I was afraid anything I tried might make it worse,” he confessed.

“I have Finn’s permission to discuss his medical history with you, and I feel it’s important that we have a word. I expect he will want to talk to you himself, as well, in the next few days. As you know the First Order doesn’t treat the Storm Troopers like people. They try to deny them anything that could be put above the mission. They are given syth powder, a protein slurry, for food, chemical showers, no personal freedoms, and almost no human contact. When he came in we also noticed several foreign chemical compounds in his blood. The Storm Troopers are routinely drugged. The drugs wore out of Finn’s system weeks, maybe months, ago, but with the extreme stress and the pain from his injury he hasn’t noticed the difference until recently,” she explained.

“Is he in trouble, in pain?” Poe asked, his mouth dry with anxiety.

“After a fashion. The drugs were intended to prevent the soldiers from developing love, attachment, or any kind of desire. Physically they act as a form of chemical castration. They also, capped the potential for pleasure and affectionate feelings,” she explained. “Now that the drugs have worn off, Finn is grappling with these emotions and sensations for the first time. He’s confused, feeling betrayed by his body and insecure in his mind. Considering his experience with the panic attacks, lack of control seems to be of particular concern to him, as I’m sure you can understand. When he started getting physically aroused, he thought he was ill or injured and came down to medical to seek assistance. Now I’ve explained things to him and advised him to speak with Jolon about it, but there’s a bit of a complication. It’s not just undirected desire or pubescent arousal,” she offered gently, her subtextual meaning plain enough to the experienced pilot. She was trying to put it delicately, but Finn was attracted to someone, and seriously enough to cause the doctor concern.

Poe sat there hurting for Finn and dumbfounded. He must be so scared. Poe wished that his friend came to him. He would have helped, or tried anyway. He tried not to acknowledge that a part of that hurt was for himself. “Everyone’s fond of him. Whoever it is I’ll talk to them, make sure they’re nice about it if they’re not interested,” he promised, though there was a note of resignation in his voice. It would be tough helping Finn out with his first crush considering how strongly he felt for the man, but that was what friends did, and he was Finn’s friend to the last.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” she replied with relief. She was unprepared to tell Poe that he was the object of Finn’s affection. Some of this the two would have to work out on their own, but she at least wanted him to have a basis of understanding. “Finn’s unaccustomed to a lot of the social cues that are common and familiar to most of us here. Whoever he eventually ends up with is going to have to be very patient and take special care with him. He may not understand his right to refuse consent, or have any reasonable expectations regarding what a healthy relationship would entail. I can walk him through the mechanics of most of the physical stuff, if he’s unsure. It’s part of my responsibility as his doctor in seeing to his health, but for the rest, he could really use a friend to look after his interests,” she solicited. 

“I’m not going to let anyone hurt him. I’ll do everything I can,” he vowed. Poe got up to leave, confident that this was all the doctor could possibly have for him. It was certainly enough.

“Thank you. Just one more thing, Commander, in this entire ordeal Finn’s primary concern was losing your friendship. He asked to be put on the drugs again rather than endanger your relationship, and only accepted my refusal at the suggestion that the drugs themselves might harm his ability to maintain relations with you on even terms. If you can reassure him, I believe that would go a long way to resolving the situation,” she suggested.

He must know then, about Poe’s feelings for him and fear that Poe would be unable or unwilling to contain his jealousy and pain. He’d genuinely assumed that his feelings had gone over Finn’s head, given how new he was to kindness in general. He wondered who it could be, suspected Jess. Poe turned around to face the doctor, his eyes awake with passion. “I’m not abandoning him, I don’t care who he wants to sleep with,” his voice colored by the hurt he’d been trying to suppress. After everything they’d been through together, Poe really thought that when the time came, it would be him. “I want to kill every last one of them for doing this to him. But if the best I can do is help him put the pieces back together, I will. He deserves to get whatever he wants.”

“I hope you both get it,” she spoke aloud to the empty room once he’d gone. She mused on the oath she had taken at the academy, one line of the ancient words in particular stuck with her: _I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug._

It took an hour with a punching bag, and several more working on his latest mechanical project, for Poe to calm down enough that he trusted himself with Finn. He worked on the X-Wing until exhaustion had mellowed him and his hands ached. The ship was a problem he could fix. His affection for Finn and his anger at the monsters who had tormented him from boyhood and twisted him to their purposes was like a cancer he couldn’t fully excise. He wondered when his friend would ever be able to catch a break. And in an embarrassing moment of self-pity he allowed himself a long moment to mourn the fact that Finn wanted someone else. In the end it was the fact that Finn truly did need a friend, which motivated him back to his room. His clothes were grease stained, his knuckles scuffed, and his hair tousled. He looked tired.

Finn was in their bed with the book Poe leant him that first night he’d come to the room. Despite the fact that the book was open he seemed not to be reading it so much as thinking in its general direction.

“Hey pal,” Poe offered, trying to keep his tone light. Finn looked up from the book, laying it out over his lap and seeming to forget it. 

“Hey, X-Wing still kicking up trouble?” he asked. It was neat listening to Finn pick up the resistance slang. 

Poe nodded. “She’ll fly. It’s just a matter of patience.” He sat down next to Finn on the bed. “I spoke to the doctor today. I just wanted to let you know that I’m here to talk about it anytime you want and no matter what, nothing’s going to change with us. You’ll always be my best friend, and you’ll always have a place here,” he promised.

Finn’s entire body seemed to let out a sigh of relief at that. “It doesn’t bother you?” Finn asked. 

“No, Finn. Whoever it is you want, they’ll be lucky to have you,” he offered.

Finn frowned at him like he was trying to puzzle him out. “What did the doctor tell you exactly?” he asked.

“She told me about the drugs and what they did to you,” his face scrunched up in sympathetic pain at that. “She told me you were starting to feel things you don’t have much experience with. And she told me you’d taken a liking to someone. For a minute I thought maybe Rey, but she’s far away so if it was that the Doc wouldn’t have felt the need to call us both in,” he admitted. 

Finn felt his face get hot. “She uh, didn’t tell you who, huh?” he asked. 

“I think she figured it was up to you to decide who to tell, buddy. I mean I know you gave her permission with the medical stuff, but you have a right to what’s up here, remember?” he tapped Finn’s temple and Finn felt the contact throughout his body. He looked at Poe closely. They were very close and the proximity seemed stifling, but Finn was frightened to give up the closeness when he might never have it again. 

He gathered his courage. He wasn’t sure why, but this really scared him. He’d never asked anyone for anything, and he wasn’t even sure what he wanted from Poe. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot and not like I think about the others. Jolon said you’re not supposed to think about your friends like that. I didn’t mean to; it just happens. The Doc said you wouldn’t be upset but, are you?” he asked. 

Poe’s brain was still playing catch up but he was almost certain Finn had just confessed to more than friendly feelings for him and all his suave veneer vanished. “Upset? Of course not,” he was a hair’s breath from declaring his undying love when he remembered the doctor’s words. He didn’t want to scare Finn, and now that he had an idea of what was going on they would find a way to work through it together. He was certain. “I think about you a lot too,” he countered, deciding to use Finn’s language since it was something he hoped Finn would understand. 

A dark flush burnt his cheeks like a crackling ember, “you think about me when you. . .” Finn seemed at a loss and Poe had to rake over the conversation with the doctor carefully to catch Finn’s meaning. 

“Yes,” he replied. It was never a question he’d have dared answer so directly with a previous partner, preferring to play around the details, maintain the mystery. After all, imagination was a very private thing. Yet, Finn needed to know he wasn’t alone, that what he was experiencing was okay. Finn breathed a sigh of relief.

“Is there something in particular you‘ve been thinking about?” Poe asked carefully. He wasn’t sure how to ask Finn what he wanted. He wasn’t certain Finn even knew. 

Finn looked at him hungrily, and not for the first time Poe saw how starved he was for affection and contact, but also how sensitive he was to it. “You touching me, not like you touch me now, differently,” he confessed. Poe nodded, non-judgmentally. Holy hell, he wanted to strip Finn of his clothes now, now, now and touch every inch of him. 

“We can do that, if you’d like,” he offered, carefully. 

“Could I touch you back?” he asked. Poe was absurdly grateful to the doctor for her warnings, the context she had provided. The smart ass remarks that almost certainly would have spilled from him only hours earlier now died in his throat.

“Yes,” he replied simply.

Finn looked hesitantly curious but unsure whether it was an invitation to touch him now or at some yet to be determined moment in the future.

“Has anyone ever kissed you?” Poe asked his voice soft and a little nervous. Finn could feel the faint stirrings of interest below the book in his lap. He shook his head mutely. “Would you like me to kiss you now?” Poe watched him swallow a lump in his throat and nod, his eyes wide, his pupils dilated. Poe placed a careful hand on his cheek, stroking it with his thumb in a way that exceeded the bounds of friendship. Finn moved into the touch almost automatically. Poe leaned in slowly, so that Finn would have enough time to move away and halt this entire proceeding if he changed his mind. He captured Finn’s lips in a soft, chaste kiss. Finn sat there eyes closed for a moment, barely breathing. He seemed to be trying to imprint the sensation on his brain. He leaned in clumsily and tried to replicate the kiss with more enthusiasm than skill. Poe guided his motions with the hand on his cheek and the soft, gentle kissing became decidedly enjoyable. They broke away and looked at one another. 

“Was that okay?” Poe asked in a whisper, not removing the lingering warm touch. His hand slid around to rest comfortably on the back of Finn’s neck, thumb swiping through the rough short hairs at the base of his neck. Finn closed his eyes and leaned in minutely, foreheads resting together, sharing breath. “That was the nicest thing that’s ever happened to me,” he confessed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this got incredibly long, but I didn't think anyone would mind, considering the pay off at the end. (Finally, right?!) I hope everyone enjoyed reading about Finn's awkward fumbling as much as I enjoyed writing it. 
> 
> I always have a blast reading the comments. It keeps me writing. So please let me know what you think. 
> 
> Also, update, the first chapter of the story from Poe's perspective is now written, but it's been a really slow week, writing-wise. Haven't decided what the posting schedule will be yet, but I'll let you know when I decide. By way of teaser though, the title's almost certainly going to be "Burnout."


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the kiss Finn tries to figure out their relationship.

What Finn found most surprising about the aftermath of his first kiss was that nothing changed all that much. He and Poe played cards with Jess and Snap, just like they had before. They held up the dinner line joking around while Finn was slinging grub, just like they had before. Every night he slept in Poe’s bed, just like he had before. Though the arm slung over his chest was a regular occurrence rather than an anomaly now. Finn liked that. During the day, those incidental touches increased in frequency now that they both knew the other desired, rather than tolerated, them. When neither was too tired at night, they spent a long time kissing and feeling out one another’s bodies. Finn added that to the pleasure list. Finn learned that Poe was absurdly talented at communicating with his hands and tried to learn it like a language. He often felt as though he was communicating through a thick foreign dialect, but Poe never seemed to mind.

Poe asked him a lot of questions: “Do you like how this feels;” “Is it alright if;” “Can I touch you here.” Poe was equally vocal and forthcoming about his own preferences: “I like it when. . .;” “You can. . .;” “That’s good.” 

It helped since Finn had no idea what he was doing. Having never been involved with anyone at all, it didn’t occur to Finn that this much talking was outside of the ordinary. Having Poe touch him instead of himself was better than he imagined. One of the most surprising things was that the feeling of empowerment, of possession of his body, didn’t stop because it was Poe touching him. In fact, it felt like an even greater rebellion, to do something so wonderful and forbidden, something so intimate, entangled with another person. Poe revered and respected his body, in a way that struck awe into the heart of him. 

He was also amazed with the hold he seemed to have over Poe, that he could reduce the man to gasping and groaning. It was a level of trust no one had ever placed in him before, and a level of willing surrender he had never experienced. Yet, they went no further than touching, stroking, and petting. This too, he had no context for. Maybe Poe was doing what everyone did, what was normal, and Finn wanting to burrow inside Poe, his inclination to seek an indeterminate _something more_ in terms of closeness, was foreign. He never mentioned it to Poe, since he had no clear picture of what he was looking for, and he didn’t want Poe to think for a second that he was anything less than deliriously happy with their current arrangement. Because he was, deliriously happy with their current arrangement.

After they had kissed and spent a lot of time getting intimately familiar with one another, Finn was less scared about the conversation Jolon strongly recommended that the two of them have. He and Jolon practiced the conversation a couple of times before he actually attempted it. He’d picked a time when they were alone, calm, and clothed (one of Jolon’s recommendations). 

“Can I ask you something?” Finn requested. Poe put down the dossiers of potential new pilots he was looking through and gave Finn his full focus. “Sure” he replied.

“Jolon and I have been talking about different kinds of relationships and what it means to be in them. I was sort of hoping to understand what kind we’re in, so I know what you expect from me and what I can expect from you, and we don’t mess it up,” he confessed. Jolon had repeatedly recommended that Finn introduce this conversation in a way that was balanced, that suggested that there were responsibilities for both of them, not just asking to be told what the rules were so he wouldn’t accidentally violate them. It didn’t matter. Poe could hear what Finn wasn’t saying. He could also tell that this was hard for Finn and didn’t call him out on what he was really asking.

“That’s a good idea,” he answered measuredly. He sat up a little straighter. “Have you thought about what kind you would like to be in?” Poe asked. 

Finn shifted a little uncomfortably and shrugged. “I still don’t understand the differences completely,” he confessed.

“How about this, do you want to kiss anyone else? Or touching, the private stuff we do when we’re alone, are you interested in doing that with any other people?” Poe asked, keeping his expression open and easy. 

Finn thought for a second, “I don’t think so,” he offered. Of course he hadn’t met everyone in the galaxy, so maybe he would want to kiss someone else someday, but probably not more than he wanted to kiss Poe. 

“Okay,” Poe replied easily, “Would it bother you if I kissed anyone else? Or touched anyone else, like we do when we’re alone?” he asked. Finn thought about it, really thought about it, tried to picture it, and decided that it did bother him. It made him kind of nervous, like Poe might not like him as much if he liked anyone else enough to want to do that with them. It was their own special thing. Bringing anyone else into it felt like an unwelcome intrusion.

“Yeah. Is that. . .is that a problem?” he asked nervously. 

Poe regarded him fondly. “No Finn, you’re the only one I want to kiss,” he replied, smiling at him a little. “But I think that means we can rule out anything polyamorous,” he continued. “So that means that all those more than friends touches, those are just for you and me. I won’t share that with anyone but you. Does that sounds okay?” he asked. Finn nodded, seeming a little more confident. “Okay, neither will I,” Finn agreed.

“Good,” Poe replied, pleased. “How about sharing our room, sharing our bed, you like that?” he asked. Finn nodded immediately. “And you get that it’s our room and our bed, right? It’s just as much yours as mine?” he asked. Finn hesitated a little before nodding. Poe noted that that was still taking time and decided he’d have to find a way to help drive that home to Finn so that he understood it in a way that was more than merely intellectual. “But there are some things you want to keep that are just yours right?” Poe asked. Finn hesitated again. He’d paused long enough that Poe worried he wasn’t going to answer. “There are some things I’m not willing to share,” Poe confessed, “My flight suit, that’s just for me and the piece of my mom’s old RZ-1, the pressed leaves from where I grew up, and a couple of the books my grandfather left me,” he explained. Finn nodded, it never would have occurred to him to expect any possession over those things, or any of Poe’s things. But it also helped him to have an idea that there were some things it was okay not to share. “Shylo,” Finn named immediately, Poe nodded, he’d already known as much. Finn hesitated as he considered naming the other thing that was of the greatest importance to him, something he didn’t feel he had rights to make off limits, but wanted to all the same. “You can say it Finn, I’m pretty sure I already know,” Poe recommended. 

“The jacket,” he admitted. 

Poe nodded. “It’s yours man, has been since you pulled it out of that trashed out Tie Fighter. I don’t want it back,” he reassured Finn.

Poe nodded, “So aside from a few exceptions you’re cool with sharing our space and our stuff, living together, sharing a bed?” Poe asked. Finn nodded. 

“If I mess up, would you tell me so?” he asked. 

“Like at your job?” Finn asked uncomfortably. 

“No, Finn, at this, at you and me. I’m only human and a lot of the time I don’t know what’s going on in your head. I get forgetful and make dumb mistakes and I won’t always be perfect, I can’t promise you that. Which is why I need to know that you’ll tell me if I mess up with you, so I have a chance to try and make it right,” Poe explained.

“I’m not always good at telling people what’s going on with me. I’m just starting to get better at figuring it out myself,” Finn confessed. 

“Can you promise to try? Like if I do something that makes you feel bad, could you promise to try and tell me?” Poe countered. 

Finn thought about it. “I promise to try,” he agreed. He was starting to understand why Jolon had stressed the balance. He hadn’t realized how much he needed this until he had the opportunity to ask for it. “And you’ll give me a chance to try and make things right if I mess up with you?” he asked. “This won’t just go away because I make one mistake?” From the way he said it, Poe could tell that was exactly what Finn had been waiting for, the inevitable end to this as soon as he took a step out of line. Poe felt that familiar ache in his chest that crept up on him when he was reminded that Finn sometimes didn’t see himself as a person, that he valued affection and control so much because he’d never had them, that he took the deepest pleasure in the simplest delights because they were so novel and unfamiliar, and that his fears ran deep and real because they had been validated for decades. 

“This is something you can put your trust in,” Poe promised him. “If something’s not right we’ll work it out together, I’m not going to up and disappear or give up on you. I’ll do whatever I have to for as long as it takes to prove that to you. So yeah, if something’s wrong, you’ll have the chance to make it right,” Poe promised. Finn seemed overwhelmed, though Poe couldn’t tell what emotion it was that he was overwhelmed with. There was something else Poe wanted to ask him, something desperately important, but Poe feared it might be one thing too many, a little more than Finn could handle right at that moment. The question of love would have to wait.

“I think it’s safe to say that we’re in a relationship,” Poe explained, “which basically means what we just agreed, we are intimate with each other, we share our lives, and we work out our problems together,” he summarized. “That sound okay to you?” he asked. 

“Better than okay, good, really good,” Finn agreed.

It occurred to him, that night as he and Poe laid in bed sated and sleepy, that all the things they discussed were things they had already been doing, but it made Finn so much more confident, having them spelled out. It may never change, Finn realized, needing rules to feel secure. However, at least now he had someone who was willing to work with him to help him identify rules that were there to keep him safe instead of in line. 

Poe was already half asleep, warm and curled close around him, nose nestled in the crook of his neck and an arm across his stomach holding him. He made Finn feel warm in a way that was more than physical. Poe murmured soft words to him in a language Finn didn’t understand and pressed lips against the back of his neck. But by the time Finn decided to ask about it Poe’s breathing had already lapsed into the slow steady rhythm of sleep, and all that escaped Finn was a yawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I hope you all enjoyed the latest update. In the next chapter the action starts picking up a bit again. Let me know what you think in the comments.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn gives Poe's offer of a name some serious consideration.

Finn had so much good in his life that he didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the things that other people had which he did not. Still, Finn hadn’t forgotten about the whispered conversation that night after one of Poe’s nightmares. In fact, it was a subject he mused on often. Poe Dameron had offered Finn his name. He’d tried to make an informal study of how names worked in the New Republic, but found himself surprised and overwhelmed by how many names each person had. 

Back when he was a Storm Trooper, people had at most two titles. They had their number (FN-2187) sometimes abbreviated if in small groups (Eight-Seven) and if they got on the wrong side of anyone they could earn titles bestowed to express pejorative sentiments aimed at them. Like one of his old subordinates who everyone called “Slip” cause he was a giant slip up. That was it. 

In the outside world, people had tons of names, and at first, there seemed to be almost no logic to them. Yet, somehow everyone around him seemed to know exactly what to call one another in any given situation. After learning that Snap had a name that wasn’t actually Snap, he broke down and asked the man what this name stuff was all about. This was one of the benefits of having friends, Finn mused, he could ask questions and no one seemed bothered by it. In fact, both Snap and Jess were ready and willing to provide advice and aid. As it turned out, Snap actually knew a lot about names, or his own at least. 

“Everyone’s got a first name” Snap explained, “even you. Right? Finn, that’s your first name.” Finn nodded. That he knew already. Temmin explained that his first name meant Right Side, in some ancient language, since forgotten. When Finn asked him why he was named after the right side of something he shrugged good-naturedly and said “You’d have to ask my mum.”

“Then there’s your last name, it’s a family thing, usually your last name is the same either as your family or as the person who you marry. Some people take their own last name and their partners last name when they get together and connect them with a hyphen. Like Jim, you know him?” Snap asked rhetorically. “Well his last name is Jim Bentonis-Mydic, you know, Bentonis was his last name and Mydic was Lida’s.” Finn was already a little confused, but nodded. “My name’s a bastardization of a bastardization of a name that had something to do with some Meadow my ancestor’s farmed a few millennia ago,” he said with a wry smile.

“How come you keep it then. Why not be Temmin Starfighter or something?” Finn asked. 

Temmin smiled and shrugged. “Not arguing the logic Finn, but it’s where I come from. I mean yeah, now I’m in a totally different place, I wouldn’t recognize those people if I fell over them, but it’s still where I came from, and it’s important to me to keep that alive,” Snap explained, with more earnestness than Finn had expected. He considered his own situation, Poe’s offer to share the last name that tied him to his whole history. But the reality was, it was Poe’s history, not his. No matter how much he wished things had been different, he’d come from the ranks of Storm Troopers, not New Republic fighter pilots.

“So you got a first name and a family name and a callsign?” Finn asked.

“Not exactly. I got a middle name too, goes between the first name and the family name. Not everyone has one, but well probably more than half of us have got’em. Mine’s Eryk.” He went on to explain that it meant ‘Always Ruler,’ and had once belonged to some mostly forgotten conqueror of something or other. Finn wasn’t entirely listening. He was blown away by the fact that Snap had this whole long name, with all this rich history, and no one, not a soul, ever called him that. 

When Snap continued it jostled him out of his daze. “Then there’s the callsign you get if you’re a pilot. That’s something you earn in training, usually by doing something incredibly, memorably, stupid. Mine is Snap, cause my clumsy arse accidentally hit the accelerator my first time in flight and I shot myself out fifteen parcecs in a snap before even realizing what I’d done. Nearly shit myself I was so scared. Anyway, I’ve never seemed like much of a Temmin, so I get addressed by my callsign most of the time, even when I’m not in the cockpit” he explained. 

“Does Poe have one of those?” Finn asked curiously. 

Temmin grinned. “Hell yeah he does. Now, it’s Black Leader, but back when he was learning it was Boots.” Temmin snickered, like he was telling Finn a dirty joke. “When he was training they made the recruits get dressed in under five minutes, and the first day Commander Dameron was so busy running his mouth he didn’t manage to get his damn boots on his feet. They made him run drills barefoot like an idiot all day. Couldn’t shake it until he made Commander” he admitted.

Finn couldn’t keep the fond smile off his face. That sounded exactly like something Poe would do. “Hey Snap, I noticed Karé calls you Lambkin, is that another name?” Finn asked genuinely. 

Temmin turned beet red and choked on his drink. Finn raised an eyebrow at him inquisitively. “That’s what’s known as a pet name, a term of endearment, so yeah, I think that’s the last time we’ll be mentioning that,” he offered with decided embarrassment. Obviously trying to change the subject, he pressed forward, “Commander Dameron doesn’t have anything special he calls you?” Temmin asked. 

“I mean, it was special when he called me Finn,” the man confessed, “that was _his_ name for me.” 

Snap looked at him confused and curious but unsure whether it was okay to ask. “Storm Troopers don’t get names they get ID numbers. The ID numbers are two letters followed by four numbers, indicating your division and your individual tag. I was in the FN division. Poe didn’t want to call me by a number, I guess since you guys don’t do it like that out here, so he said he was going to call me Finn, and I liked it, a lot, you know, having a real name like a real person.” Finn shrugged. “So when people asked me my name I said it was Finn, and now I guess it just is,” he added, a little sheepishly, as though Snap might feel lied to or something. When Snap seemed at a loss for words Finn continued on, babbling a little in his desire to breeze over the momentary discomfort. “Although I guess once I was falling asleep and Poe said something. I was pretty tired and I didn’t remember to ask about it later. It was, uh, hahcorrie or ha corri or something, I think,” he admitted. 

Temmin gaped at him openly. “He’s got it bad for you, man. It means ‘my heart’ in his old man’s language.” Finn considered that, and felt the tips of his ears get a little hot. “And that’s why you don’t talk about pet names with someone you ain’t sleepin’ with,” Temmin added, with a good-natured grin and a rough pat on Finn’s shoulder. “You got any more questions or you ready for another round of drinks?” Temmin asked with the light air of joking. 

Finn considered him. Wondered whether Snap was close enough to him that he could ask for the advice he needed. He decided it was probably too much. “Yeah, sounds good, you got a deck of cards?” he asked, allowing the night to lapse back into meaningless banter to pass the time.

The next day he and BB-8 were working on his language recognition. BB-8 was giving him regular instruction in droidspeak. Yet, Finn found himself distracted and began mixing up the pattern that meant forward and the one that meant food to BB-8’s obvious displeasure. “Can I ask you something?” he requested. An affirmative beep. “How’d you get your name?” he asked. 

BB-8’s spherical dome canted upwards in a way that Finn couldn’t help but take for questioning. Another series of beeps. “The engineer who built you?” he acknowledged. An affirmative beep. “Did she ever tell you why?” Finn asked. More beeping and a whistle, BB-8 did a tight little donut in front of him, like a dog chasing its tail before coming to face him again and canting his head up at Finn, as though looking for a pat. “I suppose you do look a bit like a B or an eight,” Finn acknowledged. 

Another string of droidspeak, longer this time, and fast. “So, Poe could have changed it when you came into his care but he didn’t?” Finn asked slowly, after a bit of work translating in his head. Another pleased whoop. “Is that why you like him so much?” BB-8 rolled forward brushing his leg. Finn smiled and patted his dome. “Okay okay, I’ll stop procrastinating,” he agreed, and they returned to their lesson.

The next day in the kitchen he was deep in thought, stirring a pot of hot broth and brooding. “Ziek, why is that pot not the only thing in this kitchen stewing?” Meeko demanded, with an amused sort of exasperation. 

“I was wondering how you and Caroon got your names.”

“And you except to divine the answer in the soup?” Meeko inquired impatiently hands on their hips.

“I didn’t know if you’d be bothered that I asked,” Finn confessed. 

Meeko chuckled throatily, motioning for Finn to put the ladle down. They actually seemed happy or – no that wasn’t the right word – relived to have an opportunity to talk about their home. “On my planet everyone is born with a name,” Meeko explained. “But those are personal and private, and not always something that translates well into words,” they continued. “So when children reach a certain age they choose the name by which they will be known to others. Some are superstitious about letting anyone learn their true name, some find it boorish or too intimate to share, others just find them too hard to explain. Caroon and I made our choices when we came of age,” Meeko explained. “Choosings were celebrated,” Meeko recounted with a painful nostalgia.

“How did you know what to choose?” 

“I tried on a few different ones to see how they sounded. This one rang well in my ears,” Meeko admitted “A nice unfussy name. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t have a last name, and I think I ought to. I suppose I have a choosing of my own,” he confessed.

Meeko patted his arm. “You’ll choose well,” Meeko assured him confidently, before giving him a wink and waving him back to work.

After talking to his friends, and doing a bit of soul searching with Jolon, Finn had some definite ideas about what he’d like his last name to be. However, he was nervous to share his decision with anyone, especially Poe, who had so kindly offered up his family name. Still, considering what a family name was supposed to be about - history, where a person was from, and who they were because of it - Finn didn’t feel right taking it. He hoped Poe would understand. But it was more than that. He needed Poe to know why he chose what he had, and he hoped for his support, if not his approval.

He waited until they were lying in bed, Finn playing little spoon with Poe’s body wrapped warmly around him. Finn found it easier to talk to Poe when the man wasn’t looking at him. “I’ve been thinking about taking a last name,” Finn confessed, Poe perched himself up on his elbow so he could look Finn in the face. So much for Poe not looking at him, he thought. Finn rolled over onto his back so they were face to face.

“Yeah?” Poe asked, intrigued. 

“Snap was explaining about names, and it seems important. I uh, I think I know what I’d like to use, but I don’t want you to think I’m a bad guy.” 

Poe considered him with concern. “Finn, I could never think you’re a bad guy,” Poe promised him, “No matter what name you want to take. I’m with you. It’s not Vader or something, is it? I mean it’s okay if it is but, it’s not, right?” he babbled. 

“It’s not.” Finn agreed, but looked suddenly unsure about his desire to have this conversation and Poe quietly kicked himself for running his mouth. “A family name is supposed to be about where you’re from, right? Where you grew up and all that?” he asked cautiously. “I was thinking, maybe Storm. Finn Storm,” he offered. “Even if I don’t agree with the First Order or what they did, it’s where I came from. If I hadn’t grown up there I have no idea who I would be. Does it bother you?” Finn asked. 

“No, it’s perfect for you Finn,” Poe replied, kissing him soundly. In the back of his mind he was thinking Poe Dameron-Storm had a damn nice ring to it. Maybe someday.

When the kiss ended Finn looked sheepish, Poe could tell that there was something else he intended to say. “Uh, there’s one other thing,” Finn admitted.

“Lay it on me,” Poe offered, trying to replace the smile on his face with a more neutral expression and mostly failing. 

“After Jim’s party I tried to learn a little about birthdays, and I think I figured out why you’re supposed to be excited about them. I don’t know when mine is. I know it’s a big thing around here, but it seems like maybe _people_ are supposed to have them,” he admitted. “I mean, I don’t expect anyone to, you know, celebrate it or whatever, since of course it’s fake, but I figure I ought to come up with a date just so I have an answer when someone asks,” Finn admitted. 

“Okay?” Poe agreed. 

“I thought, maybe that day we met, on the base,” he suggested, seeming kind of embarrassed. “I mean that’s when my life started, my real life. . .” he hedged. Poe looked at him with open adoration. 

“That sounds like a good choice,” Poe agreed. “There’s just one thing.” Finn raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re not getting off that easy,” Poe said, with mock solemnity. “There’s no way I’m not celebrating your birthday. I’m going to spoil the hell out of you, Finn. After all, you’ve got a ton in the bank,” Poe replied tenderly. 

Finn smiled and rolled his eyes, turning over onto his side and pulling Poe down into an easy embrace. “Just, no parties, okay?” he asked with a wry sort of humor.

Poe snuggled into his chest. “You got it,” he agreed.

His friends were surprisingly unphased by his choice of surname. Jess and Snap took it entirely in stride, BB-8 taught him how his full name sounded in droidspeak. Poe beamed at him openly any time he thought Finn wasn’t looking. However, perhaps the kindest reaction of all was from Meeko. 

When he arrived at the kitchens for work he found an usual scene, two candles set on one of the countertops beside a little plate of treats, tiny, precise, clear gelatin squares each with a piece of fruit perfectly preserved inside. They were extremely delicate looking and Finn wondered for a moment how they were made, then for another moment what they might taste like. 

Caroon was hovering nearby as though plotting and dismissing all the ways they could get their hands on the treats without getting in trouble. Meeko came out of the pantry in a clean apron and favored Finn with a warm look. “Happy Choosing Day, Finn Storm,” Meeko said warmly. “Come, let us light these,” Meeko suggested indicating the candles. Finn was awed. He knew that this must be at least a piece of Meeko and Caroon’s world, and they were sharing it with him. They sat and talked and ate the entire plate of sweets together. Dinner was late that day, and it was entirely worth it. 

Finn had never felt more like part of a family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I promised this chapter would be back to the action but I lied. This is some fluffy stuff right here. However, the fic flows much better with this chapter here as opposed to where I originally intended it (as the second to last chapter). So now the next chapter is back to the action (for real). You might also notice that Actualization will now be 15 chapters! That’s the last change, I promise. It’s all written and I’m confident that aside from routine edits, nothing more is changing. Now I can spend a little more time on Burnout and the Sequel, which are both coming along slowly but surely. 
> 
> Thanks for sticking with this fic. I really appreciate all the comments. They keep me motivated.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mission goes wrong and the rebellion's ace pilot barely makes it back with his life. Learning what went wrong with the mission raises more questions than it answers.

There were more missions after that. Finn wasn’t sure whether the war effort needed Poe more and more or whether it always had and Finn just needed him less and less. He’d known, deep down, that Poe had been shirking duties for him. Now that he was back to being an ace pilot it was hard not to notice just how much time Poe usually spent flying and how much of that he’d put on hold just because Finn needed him. One night, after Poe came home from flying another mission, Finn asked about whether things with the war were getting worse. By way of answer, Poe just shook his head, too exhausted to discuss it further. Finn put a plate of hot food in his hands and he shoveled it down mechanically. He fell asleep still in his clothes. Finn carefully removed his shoes and spread a blanket over him. He watched Poe sleep for a while, before crawling into bed beside him. 

Poe didn’t tell him stories about the battles. Sometimes when he was down on a planet he’d bring Finn back trinkets: sand dollars, a bright scrap of soft fabric, an interesting food he’d never tasted before – the spoils of someone else’s war, Finn thought eerily. Yet, it also reminded him, that when Poe was away he’d taken the time, perhaps just a single moment, to find something nice, something undamaged and uncorrupted by the war, and to bring it back for _him_. Poe saw enough bad that Finn was unwilling to take away any moment of comfort or beauty he found, any distraction from the bloodshed. Finn kept the sand dollar in his pocket with the beanbag and the list of things that were different. It felt coarse and rough against his fingers. It reminded him that Poe was coming home. 

When it was over, when there was no more fighting, he thought it might be fun to planet hop for a while, trying all the local flavors wherever they landed. Poe would be good at that, he thought, making friends with a million different alien strangers.

Despite not asking for details, and not being told, he was inexplicably proud of Poe, of how hard he worked and the dedication he had to his men. Once or twice, out of sheer curiosity he’d watched the ships go out and come back in. Usually, Finn was too busy in the kitchens to see Poe off or be on the tarmac to welcome him back. But the mood in the mess told him everything he needed to know about the relative state of the soldiers. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, or that he didn’t worry. But he trusted his impossible pilot to go out and come back in as steady as the tide.

After seeing the mess clear out abruptly and hearing shouts and screams from somewhere up above he was off running toward the tarmac. Finn never knew the details of the missions but he could get a sense of how a battle had gone when he saw the ships coming back into the hanger. This was a bad one. Finn waited holding his breath as the beat up pilots dragged themselves and their ships back in. Ten minutes passed, Finn paced, the bottom of his stomach dropping out. He grabbed one of the haggard pilots. “Where’s Commander Dameron?” Finn demanded, an edge of panic in his voice. The pilot shook his head. “I don’t know man, it was chaos out there, we lost track of each other,” he confessed. He forced himself to breathe into his diaphragm so he didn’t lose his shit right then and there. It was a testament to just how much work he’d done in therapy that he wasn’t a puking, sobbing, mess on the tarmac. If Poe was hurt he was going to need Finn intact, he had to keep it together. 

Finn grabbed at two more incoming pilots who shared the same confusion regarding Dameron’s whereabouts. Jess’ bird careened into the bay too hot and squealed a metal on asphalt screech that set his teeth on edge as it slid to a stop. Engineers and medics were pulling her from the fighter; she was bleeding liberally from a wound to her head. He had to do something or he’d go crazy. He offered a hand field dressing some of the lighter battle wounds. He was no medic but he could offer some help. 

As he dressed and tended, he started formulating a plan for how to go and find Poe and bring him home. He would steal a ship and a bot that could pilot. If the General didn't like it (and she wouldn’t) he’d take his leave of the Resistance once he brought Poe back safe. Never seeing Poe again was better than leaving him to die out there, (wherever there was, an issue he’d resolve once he was airborn). Somehow he knew in a soul-deep way that Poe was alive, hurt maybe, dying, but not gone from his universe, not yet. He’d just finished formulating his plan when two more ships came limping in lightly damaged. The way they were flying - one following the other, listing a little to one side - Finn knew that something was wrong. It was the ship with the black streak, being carefully led into the hanger by another pilot. Once they were on the ground Snap exited the leading fighter 

Finn ran out to meet it. Poe was dragged from the cockpit, pale and clutching at his left side just under his rib cage. He seemed most annoyed that his ship had taken a beating, but Finn could see he was in pain. Poe’s expression softened for a moment when he saw the relief written on Finn’s face. Finn slipped in carefully under one arm to help support him. “Bastards shot up my ship,” Poe groaned to the nearest engineer who would listen. He listed slightly into Finn and spoke in a hoarse whisper. “Can you help me down. I really don’t want to pass out in front of my guys,” Poe admitted. Alarmed, Finn helped ease him into a sitting position, crouching in front of him and keeping a hand on the back of his neck in case Poe really did pass out, though he tried not to fuss over him in a way that the others would notice.

“Who else was hit?” Poe asked Wexley.

“Doesn’t matter, there’s not a damn thing you can do about it right now,” Snap replied. kneeling down at Finn’s right side, “You got to move your hand and let me see how bad it is,” Snap instructed. Poe seemed nervous about it, like he thought his guts might spill out if he didn’t hold them in.

Poe moved after a notable hesitation, with a visible wince. Snap ripped open the flightsuit. “Someone’s going to make you pay for that,” Poe warned Snap, his words slurring just a little. “Anderson, you make a note Wexley’s footing the bill for this mess,” he quipped to a nearby deckhand. “Yes, Sir,” the kid replied, forcing a smirk for the commander’s sake. No one was laughing.

The wound was closed over. It looked more like a burn than a bullet wound but that was how blasters operated. Yet Poe’s obvious pain, his paleness and his faintness definitely suggested something insidious lurking under the surface. Luckily it was only moments before two bots were at their side. Snap hadn’t even gotten to poking and prodding yet. They loaded Poe onto a stretcher and bore him off, Finn in tow. Tagging along was becoming something of a pastime to him. 

Medical was a madhouse like Finn had never seen it. Medics and soldiers were helping lend hands wherever they could to triage the least critical wounds while the three overworked doctors decided where to direct their considerable efforts. Snap had stayed up top to help out there. Finn didn’t know enough to have any idea of how serious this was. Finn held his hand. “It’s gunna be fine, buddy,” Poe told him in a choked whisper. “I should be telling you that,” Finn replied. “No need to tell me something I already know,” Poe answered. He closed his eyes, panting with the pain, and squeezing Finn’s hand.

Doctor Nemes was at their side. “You boys like it down here or something?” she asked, curtly, by way of greeting. 

“Can’t get enough of you, Lina,” Poe replied, his voice was weak, she frowned at him and began to examine the wound. 

“Blaster shot?”

“Clipped me,” 

“I don’t know if you noticed Commander but it's a little busy down here right now. Let’s cut the bullshit, shall we?” 

“Okay, it more than clipped me.”

“That’s better. You’re not going to like this but I’m going to have to check out the wound and you’ll have to tell me if something hurts especially badly.”

Without preamble she began pressing gently around the wound, palpating it with skilled fingers. Poe alternated between holding his breath and biting down hard on his lower lip and panting shallowly. Finn was grateful he was laying down because his skin had taken on a nasty pallor. When hands probed a particular spot Poe let out a harsh, involuntary wail and writhed away from the touch. “We’ve got some internal damage. I’m going to have to open up the wound and see what we’re dealing with. Finn I need you to wait here,” she instructed. Poe still hadn’t let go of his hand. 

“It’s going to be fine,” Finn reassured him, pressing a kiss to his knuckles, then to his sweaty forehead. “I’ll be right here when you wake up,” Finn promised him.

“Thought that was my line,” Poe answered, woozy from the pain. Finn wasn’t sure what he meant by that but gave him a tight smile anyway since he thought Poe intended it to be a joke. Then the Doc was taking him off. Now that Poe was out of sight, out of his reach Finn knew he had to find something to do or he’d lose his mind. He threw himself into field dressing wounds. After grappling with an injured wookie, he’d practically earned honorary medic status. He saw Snap again when they practically tripped over one another. 

“How’s Dameron?” Snap asked. 

“He’s in surgery,” Finn explained.

“How are you?” Snap countered, eyeing him critically. 

“Keeping busy,” Finn admitted. Snap gave him a fond smile, nothing as radiant or exuberant as Poe or Jess, just quiet camaraderie. He hadn’t seen that look since he’d last seen Rey. It made him feel just a little bit stronger. 

“Good man,” Snap replied, “you need anything you come find me, yeah?” Finn nodded appreciatively. For two hours they were elbow deep in new admissions, patching people up before they got a final review from one of the docs and were either settled in bunks or released back to quarters with orders to rest. Snap stopped in to check on Jess a few times an hour. She told him to get lost every time. She didn’t like the idea of anyone seeing her foggy and confused. When Snap shrugged helplessly, Finn made a detour back to his and Poe’s quarters for a minute and returned with Shylo. 

Finn left the toy with Jess, “only to borrow” he muttered with more than a hint of embarrassment. Yet the old beat up toy seemed to have the same effect on her that it did on him. She buried her face in the fabric and finally got some sleep. 

Poe’s surgery seemed to be taking a very long time. The crowd in medical was dwindling to those who would be requiring observation tonight. General Organa stopped down to see how everyone was. Finn decided never to tell Jess that the General had smiled fondly at her asleep and curled up around a stuffed animal. Somehow he didn’t think the hard as nails pilot would appreciate that. She asked after Poe, Finn just swallowed hard and shook his head. She understood. 

It was another thirty minutes before Doctor Nemes returned looking harried and tired. Finn wondered how many hours she slept and then realized what an absurd thing that was to think when he didn’t know whether Poe was alive or dead. He felt an irrational conviction that he would know, if Poe were gone. He didn’t understand much about “The Force” but he was certain that the galaxy would feel as though it had gone off its axis, if Poe was not in it. Something essential and intangible would be irreparably, irrevocably changed.

She motioned him to a quiet corner and sat in one of the chairs. Finn didn’t sit down. He couldn’t. She was acting strange. “Poe made it through the surgery. He’s more or less stable, and in recovery,” she informed him immediately. Finn let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and let himself sink into the chair beside her, grateful and suddenly exhausted. 

“The shot ruptured his spleen. If we’d been on one of the core planets, if he hadn’t had to fly himself back from the battlefield, if about a dozen other factors we could have saved the organ. However, there was a significant lapse in time between when he was hurt and when we treated him, and the shot was basically direct. He was bleeding significantly into his stomach. This was a serious injury, Finn, and Poe may need some support while he’s recovering,” the doctor explained.

“What kind of complications do you expect?” Finn asked. 

“We’ve vaccinated him for everything we can think of, but without a spleen Poe’s going to get sick more often. Dameron’s used to being a super hero, he may have to slow it down a little” she explained. Poe was definitely not going to like that. 

“Can he still fly?” Finn asked. 

She nodded. “He’ll have to take recovery time when he’s ill but yes, given his skills and training the General’s not going to let him go so easily,” she promised.

“That’s all that matters, well, to him anyway. As long as he can fly, I think we can figure the rest out,” Finn agreed. “Can I see him?” Finn asked.

“He’s out cold, probably will be for a while, but far be it from me to try and keep the two of you apart,” she replied, with a weary smile. Motioning to the room where he was resting.

“Let me just tell Snap he made it through the surgery and then I’ll go keep an eye on him,” Finn decided. He found Snap hunched over a cup of caff, looking like his mind was in another universe entirely. He perked up immediately when Finn came over. “News?” he asked.

“Poe made it through the surgery. He’s in rough shape, but it sounds like he’s going to pull through,” Finn explained, deciding to go light on the info. He was pretty sure Poe would want to be selective in who he told his vulnerabilities to. “You staying with him?” Snap asked. Finn nodded. “You want me to bring you anything? Toothbrush, change of clothes, something from the kitchen, whatever?” he asked. 

Finn thought about it. “I think I’m all set, Snap. Thanks. I’ll let him know you were asking after him when he wakes up,” Finn promised. 

“How hard you think Jess would punch me if I did the same for her?” Snap asked with a tired smile. 

“That would be a hell of a shiner,” Finn agreed. “Maybe best to just come back tomorrow,” Finn suggested. He nodded. Finn got up to head on his way back to Poe’s side for the night. Snap stopped him, a rushed, anxious note in his voice. Finn had never seen his calm waver, not once, no matter what. Snap hesitated like he wasn’t sure about divulging someone else’s secret. Finn stood silent, allowing him to decide for himself without Finn’s interference. He knew how important it could be to remain ignorant of what one should not know. 

“What happened out there, shouldn’t have happened,” Snap said hesitantly. Finn sat back down. “The mission, we were supposed to go in stealth, and capture a group of First Order engineers, guys who’d worked on the Weapon. We were supposed to take out any resistance at the base, and bring them back alive. Poe and I, we messed up bad. We got people killed out there,” he admitted. Finn touched his arm. Snap let him. Finn had never comforted anyone but Poe before, and he didn’t know what forms of comfort were allowed for friends, since Poe wasn’t one. He had the good sense not to try to take Snap in his arms.

“Three possible holding locations, three strike teams. I had the schematics for our strike team, and I took us down a wrong turn. We wound up in what must have been a dormitory, fifty beds, all empty, except four kids, eighteen, nineteen sitting around in Storm Trooper uniforms with no helmets on. It’s my fault we were there at all, we shouldn't have been, but Poe when he saw them he just froze. Like he’d been struck by lightning or something. And the Troopers froze, scared or surprised or who knows what. Poe moved toward them like he was going to have a damn conversation. Then this kid, this girl, pulls out a blaster and shoots him point fucking blank, and Poe’s screaming and screaming at Jess not to return fire. So she dives for the blaster, cracks her head on a bunk and then there’s blood everywhere and we don’t know who’s dead and everything just descends into chaos.” Snap took a few deep breaths.

“The kids are dead,” he murmured softly. “I don’t know how we got out of there. I think he saw those Troopers and something in him just broke,” Snap confessed. 

Finn felt like he’d been gutted. He was almost certain he knew why Poe couldn’t take that shot. It was because of him, because he’d taken off his helmet and there had been a person under there. Poe might be a good soldier, but killing a bunch of eighteen year olds while they were staring at him, Poe was too good a man for that. But what was worse, was that he could imagine what those Troopers had felt too. Now they were dead. Four young soldiers, just like him; plus how many casualties on their side?

His fingers brushed the sand dollar in his pocket. Suddenly he couldn’t imagine how he’d ever thought of this as someone else’s war. Snap got up like a mountain that was shaking off a winter’s worth of snow and fixed him with a weary gaze. “I’m sorry. I just, didn’t think he’d tell you himself, and someone should know,” Snap confessed.

It was only two hours before Poe was opening his eyes. “Easy Poe, you’re in recovery,” Finn reassured him. 

“‘m so tired” Poe murmured.

“That’s okay, how about you go back to sleep,” Finn suggested “You’ll feel much better in the morning.” Personally, Finn doubted the veracity of that statement but Poe was too drugged to notice. Tomorrow he would mourn the dead, shoulder the blame, and likely be forced to answer some tough questions. Finn anticipated sleepless nights ahead, best he rest now, while he was able. Finn stroked fingers through his hair brushing his thumb lightly against Poe’s temple. Poe pressed a palm over Finn's hand, holding it to his temple, rolling over onto it and falling fast asleep. Finn chanced a smile at that. Poe’s head was cradled in his palm and now Finn definitely wasn’t going anywhere. He wondered if that had been the point or if Poe had been too drugged to know what he was doing.

There were difficult days ahead, but for the moment Finn drank in the sight of Poe, tried to memorize the lines of his face, young and lax in sleep. He silently thanked the universe for letting him have this for just a little bit longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to the action, as promised. Hope you're still enjoying the fic. Please leave comments. I <3 reading them.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe recovers from injuries both physical and psychological. He raises some questions Finn hasn't considered, and helps Finn to realize what he needs to do next.

It wasn’t until Poe was fast asleep, safe and sound and breathing without difficulty, that Finn allowed himself the emotional reaction that he’d been unable to process at the time. It was nearly an hour before his shaking subsided, but he didn’t move his hand serving as Poe’s pillow, not even an inch. Today he’d almost given up his place in this community. He’d almost lost Poe and it had become strikingly clear that he would do anything to prevent that. He would sacrifice anything; he would sacrifice himself. Finn found sleep hard to come by, knowing how close he’d come to the edge of disaster.

The night passed and Poe awoke in the morning, to medical’s boring version of breakfast. Finn had never been critical of the food when he’d actually been in medical himself, but now, looking back, he could see what all the fuss was about. He supposed it was a sign that Meeko was having a significant effect on him. 

Poe was a little groggy but he was awake and aware. The first thing he asked about was who else was hurt and who hadn’t made it back, even before he inquired into his own injuries. Finn told him what little he knew and allowed Snap to fill in the rest when he arrived about an hour after Poe awoke. Poe was working overtime to hide the sad defeated expression behind his eyes. The doctor came by to explain Poe’s situation to him, and he seemed unconcerned, though he asked that Finn refrain from telling the others about his compromised immunity. Finn agreed, of course. Poe even dragged himself out of bed and hobbled two cubicles down to see Jess. She reluctantly offered Shylo back to Finn and he asked her to keep an eye on Shylo for one more night. Jess obviously wasn’t ready to relinquish the item just yet.

Unfortunately the relative calm and good will was broken when the General stopped by. She checked on their statuses, and asked them how they were. Both treated the injuries as incidental, even though Jess couldn’t sit up straight without being sick and Poe had had an entire organ removed not fourteen hours earlier. Even though she had been caring and mild Finn could tell that the General was angry. “I need to know what went wrong out there,” she admitted, eyeing the team. “All accounts suggest that you’re the ones with that information.” All three paused for an uncomfortable moment and then tried to take the blame all at once. It was like watching a three-cruiser pile up. “One at a time,” she interrupted sharply, giving Snap the floor first. Poe and Jess both glowered. 

Finn gaped openly in complete confusion, as he watched these strange proceedings. Instead of all rushing to protect themselves from their commander’s scrutiny, they were competing for who could lambaste him or herself most thoroughly in front of rank. Finn, knowing the truth, found himself utterly shocked at watching the soldiers fall over themselves to cover for one another, to shoulder the blame, to protect each other. It was shocking to him, the devotion they showed. It took him a moment to fully process that they each believed they were protecting the honor and reputation of their friends. Knowing what he did, Finn shouldn’t have been surprised that their first inclination was to put themselves between their friends and danger, he felt the same impulse, even if he had not yet recognized it in himself. He was reminded again that this was a very unique place, different, special. And somewhere deep inside, somewhere warm, he knew that if he’d been the one to mess up, they’d have done the same for him. It was a lot to contemplate.

“We got to the compound and I screwed up. I took us down a wrong hallway and we ended up in the dormitories instead of holding. There were some Troopers there. They shot at us. Concerned that blaster fire would attract the wrong kind of attention, Jess dove for the weapon, but the soldier got off a single shot and Commander Dameron took the hit. We exchanged fire, and then, our cover blown, and the other teams in danger due to the alarms, we pulled out. Ma’am,” he explained. 

She considered this version of events. She knew this was at the very best, a half-truth. They all knew that she knew. She also knew if she pressed them further they would continue to hold strong together. Her only option was to remove three of her very best pilots, and they couldn’t afford that. Not now. She still resented being lied to. “Would you agree with that assessment Lieutenant Pava?” the General asked Jess. Jess looked to Poe and Snap, she frowned. 

“Yes, Ma’am,” she replied, stoically. 

“Commander Dameron, anything you would like to add,” the General prompted. 

Poe opened his mouth to speak and both Wexley and Pava glared daggers at him. If Poe contradicted Snap’s story now, he’d only get them both in more trouble for having lied to the General. The two of them had put Poe in an impossible situation. Wexley motioned with his head, a fraction of a shake, a quiet instruction not to do what he was about to. Not to destroy his career. Not to destroy theirs. “As the leader of the strike team I take full responsibility, Ma’am,” he stated. Wexley sighed. At least he hadn’t contradicted them, just said enough to try and take some of the heat off the others.

The General seemed unimpressed, even more cross with them. “I expect you to follow all the doctor’s instructions, and I expect that this will never happen again. This was a costly mistake, I hope you never have to see the price paid in full,” she told them solemnly. Finn felt his blood run cold. Was this a threat? Was she going to hurt Poe? Or merely warning of some external consequence yet to come? Finn shifted his weight, ready to put himself bodily between Poe and danger. Even if that danger presented itself in the form of an unarmed middle aged woman. It wasn’t until after his body had responded that he realized how much his instincts betrayed him as one of them, a co-conspirator.

The General spared an irritated, tired look at him before leaving the four of them in a guilty uncomfortable silence. Poe hobbled back to his own bed, and Finn sat helpless as Poe stared into the middle distance, his mind clearly occupied in another place, a troubled one. “We’re going to get through this,” Finn promised him, the helplessness like a poison.

It wasn’t long before they were back in their quarters, Poe still moved like his entire body hurt but he’d waved off the painkillers as soon as he was able. The days were hard, he and Poe played a lot of cards but sometimes Poe would zone out, staring into nowhere and not realizing it was his turn, or even remembering that they were playing. He looked at Finn like he was a ghost half the time, like he was trying to see Finn down to the mitochondrial level. It was disquieting. The nights were worse. Poe woke up terrified and disoriented, barely breathing. 

“Easy, easy,” Finn murmured, as Poe awoke from the second nightmare in four hours, finally aware enough to be touched. Finn eased a hand up against his face thumb rubbing soothingly over his cheek. “You’re okay,” Finn reassured him. Poe just lay there, breathing for a while. Finn studiously failed to mention the wetness he could feel under his fingers. When his breathing steadied, Finn held him close. He’d talk about it, when he was ready.

“Snap told you what happened?” Poe asked after a long silence. Finn nodded. 

“Does it ever scare you how close we came to killing each other?” Poe asked. 

Finn frowned. “I never thought of it that way,” he replied.

“I would have,” Poe volunteered contemplatively “killed you, if I’d had the means at the time. I don’t think you would have though.”

Finn shrugged. “Given the right motivation, Poe. I’m pretty sure they could have gotten me to do a lot of things I’d rather not think about,” Finn confessed.

“I’ve never cared much for killing and I don’t trust anyone who does, but it’s an occupational hazard, being a soldier. I’ve always known there were people behind the masks. I always knew it was sad that someone was dying when I pulled the trigger. But I thought they were bad people. It’s not that simple anymore,” Poe admitted. “That kid, the girl, the one who shot me. She was younger than you, I don’t know maybe nineteen, had big dark eyes like yours. She could have been your younger sister” Poe admitted. 

“She shot you, Poe,” Finn reminded him softly. “Whatever it is that happened to her. She shot at you first.”

“We threatened the only home that kid probably ever knew. We scared her. I’d have done the same thing she did if I was in her place.” 

Finn forced Poe to look at him and his expression was wrought with passion and fear, liquid iron. “It’s sad and wrong and terrible that those soldiers were taken away from the lives they could have had. But they were. And all that shit the First Order shoved down their throats from the time they were toddlers, most of them believe it, like really truly believe it down to their core. If you’re sentimental about shooting them you’re going to die, Poe; because I promise, they won’t be sentimental about shooting you. I was an anomaly, an error. I never should have happened. Do you understand that? If you see me every time you catch a glimpse of white armor, one of these days I’ll be waiting for you on the hanger and you won’t be coming back.” 

“Aren't you. . .doesn’t it bother you that we never tried to rescue you? Not even once?” Poe asked. 

“I’m not some damsel in distress. I think I proved I’m perfectly capable of saving myself. And your sorry butt too, for the record,” Finn noted. Poe actually huffed a laugh that that. It was a fair point, and they both knew it. But it also wasn’t that simple. “And anyway, if anyone tried to rescue me back then, I wouldn’t have believed them, couldn’t have trusted them enough to let myself be saved. You were the enemy. Remember?” Finn admitted. He just didn’t like seeing anyone hurting like that, no matter who they were or what they’d done. The sound of Poe’s screams were once again fresh in his memory. He usually tried to forget them.

“I just wish there was something more we could do. It seems so pointless to keep killing each other forever, especially when most of the people dying out there don’t even understand why.” 

As a Trooper there were a lot of things he hadn’t been told that had been important to know. Yet, the way he’d grown up, there was a sense of mission ground into them from a young age, a fierce patriotism, a sense of unity and urgency. He knew now that it was misguided and uninformed, dangerous, but it was a sense of mission nonetheless. Finn could not bear to think of all those deaths of the people he’d served with as so terribly empty. They had been fighting for something. What they were fighting for was wrong, but it also seemed wrong to erase their dedication and efforts, to reduce them to nothing more than mindless, brainwashed children. Finn couldn’t bear it. Finn couldn’t bear Poe thinking of _him_ that way. 

“They aren’t children. They have their commitment to a mission, just like you do. Don’t pretend it doesn’t exist just because it isn’t the same as yours,” Finn replied, surprised by how adamantly he wanted Poe to understand, and the slight edge of steel in his voice. Now wasn’t the time to have this discussion, not in the middle of the night when Poe was shaken and had just relived who-knew-what in his nightmares. But the seed was planted and there would be a long talk another time. “You aren’t responsible for their actions, only your own,” he added, more gently.

He ran his fingers through Poe’s hair to show he wasn’t cross with him, and Poe closed his eyes at the soothing sensation. Finn’s voice eased into a calming rhythm. “You can’t be a soldier and a missionary,” he said softly. “You did the very best you could. I forgive you,” Finn added. He knew Poe wouldn’t forgive himself, wasn’t ready, might never be ready. Yet, if it would help even a little for Poe to know that Finn didn’t hold him responsible, he wanted Poe to have that. Even though there was nothing to forgive him for.

Poe talked for a while after that, described the panic and the long halls, the look on the woman’s face. He described the searing pain and the horror watching everything like it was all happening in slow motion. Being dragged out, away, by a soldier who hadn’t made it back to the rendezvous point. 

As Finn held Poe, silently receiving his confession, he was conscious of his own failings. He couldn’t ignore the war any longer. After years of fighting Finn had given himself permission to do less than he was capable of because it was interesting and he enjoyed it, and maybe just maybe he’d earned a break. But if all his friends were out there fighting, he better damn well be fighting to keep them safe while they did. It was time to return to what he had been trained for. It was time to be a soldier again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed the latest update. This was a particularly difficult chapter to write. Would love any feedback.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn pursues his goal of becoming a soldier, but finds a difficult barrier in the form of General Organa.

Despite his conviction that he wanted to be a soldier, his admittedly weak interest in learning the Resistance’s big picture ideology had vanished almost entirely. He had his own reasons for needing to be in a fighter, in space, with Poe and the others. He approached the General, “Ma’am,” he began solemnly. She greeted him warmly. “Finn, how are you, or is it Mr. Storm now?” she asked, with a genuine curiosity that told him the inquiry was more than a passing politeness. It was clear that the General was as accepting of his name choice as Poe had been. “Finn’s just fine General,” he decided. He’d barely gotten used to Finn, another name change so soon might be a little bit much. “I’m ready to fight,” he added, feeling more anxious than he had been since admitting to Poe that he thought about him while masturbating. 

“Why?” she asked. 

He decided quickly not to give the true answer, since he doubted she’d accept it, and it was very hard for him to explain, even to himself. “It’s important,” he attempted.

“Okay, why is it important?” she inquired patiently. 

“To be free?” Finn replied, though it came out sounding more like a question than an answer. 

Finn felt a sinking feeling that he’d lost the argument, even before he’d known it was one. “So, who do you want to be Finn?” she asked, dealing the death knell to his hopes.

“A soldier,” Finn replied, plaintively. 

She gave him a conciliatory look. “Not yet,” she replied. “Think about why you want to fight, in a week we can talk about it again,” she promised him. That night, Poe reassured him it was for the best, not to give up hope of being a soldier if that’s what he really wanted, but to trust the General’s judgment about his readiness to fight. It was hard, especially when every single time Poe went out in the ship Finn had to wait on the ground not knowing if he’d ever make it back. He was also painfully aware of the bodycount on the other side. The Troopers Temmin had told him about. He wasn’t sure he believed, like Poe did, that there was a better answer, but he knew, at the very least that someone who had seen the war from both sides should be out there to help influence what happened. Maybe he couldn’t change all that much, but he could at least exercise his judgment, he owed everyone at least that much. 

Finn considered asking Poe to help him test out possible arguments for the General, but suspected that the Commander would not appreciate his attempts to manipulate the woman he most respected into getting his way if he didn’t really mean what he said. Jolon wouldn’t give him the correct answer either, instead asking him a bunch of questions that didn’t seem relevant to anything.

In a week he returned to the General. Again she listened; again he failed to provide an answer that satisfied her. He’d studied the writings and manifestos that Poe owned with a single-minded ferocity and when he answered it was with a greater understanding of what freedom meant and why the Rebels were fighting for it. However, no matter how much he studied, it all seemed so big, so removed from him. He didn’t tell her that, but it was the truth. She gently advised him to continue thinking about it and return in another week. When he returned she was reading in her study, an old book with a dusty pink cover. She wasn’t wearing white anymore. The browns and greens softened her. 

“Come sit down,” she invited him. 

“Thank you General,”

“Ah General, this isn’t a casual visit then. Very well. I take it you still wish to be a soldier”

“Yes, Ma’am,”

“And the reason?

“I want to go out with the others,” he admitted, having decided to try a different and more honest tact this time. Her expression did not immediately close off and he suspected he was on the right track. 

“Why?”

“I hate being left behind. What if something bad happens to them out there? What if I could have helped but instead I was slicing up space carrots in the mess?” Finn demanded. 

“The job you do is important and valuable.” She replied sternly. “Are you a thrill seeker, Finn?” she asked challengingly. 

“I can be if I have to,” he answered stubbornly, his face set.

“I’m sorry, Finn. You’re not ready. I’ll be waiting until next week,” she offered him wearily. Finn made it out of her room before punching a wall. Poe wrapped his bloody knuckles and let him rant until he had no more words left, then kissed his forehead and put him to bed. The next day he was informed that Jolon was holding a session open for him, even though it wasn’t one of his usual days. He didn’t know whether Poe or the General had ratted him out for his impulsive behavior and busted up hand, but he was angry and taciturn with them both all day. Jolon tried to help him work through his anger, but still refused to give him the answer the general wanted, or even a hint about what he was doing wrong. He decided he was pissed off at Jolon too, and was a real jerk for the rest of the session. He felt shitty about it afterwards.

“What can I do to help him?” Poe asked the General privately, his tone desperate and confidential. This battle of wits was tearing apart the two people he cared for most. 

“That’s just it Commander, you can’t help him. This is an answer he needs to arrive at on his own. I’m not giving up on him. Neither should you. But I also won’t admit a soldier who is unfit to serve, just because I feel for him,” she added. “That wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the army. You know that.”

Two more weeks, two more failed attempts. Finn wasn’t sleeping well. Every time Poe was away overnight he woke up shouting, disoriented, and sick. The panic attacks returned in force leading up to Poe’s missions. Finn was simultaneously debilitated by his desire to keep his worsening condition from his partner, who needed to be able to concentrate while he was in the cockpit rather than worry about him, and feeling somewhat neglected, desperate for the kind of steady support he’d received back when things had first gotten this bad. The agoraphobia reared its ugly head once again, and Finn was so on edge when he was outside their quarters that he was lashing out at everyone.

He got into a shouting match with Meeko who waved him off and told him not to come back until he’d regained his head. That night he returned with a weary but heartfelt apology, and was restored to his work. He nearly got in a fist fight with Wexley in the mess. Snap was so shocked, confused, and genuinely hurt that he avoided Finn for three whole days. In the dark, at night, when they were holding one another, Poe’s chest cradling Finn’s scarred back, he admitted that he wasn’t sure how much longer he could do this. He confessed that Poe was the only thing keeping him there. 

Another week; another attempt. “I need to do something meaningful. I want to protect my friends,” the general seemed to consider this and for a moment, Finn was certain she was going to accept his answer, finally, after all this time. 

“What if I order you to do something you disagree with,” she asked.

He searched in vain for the correct answer to the question. If she accepted him, she would be his General. She couldn’t possibly want him to answer that he would defy orders. “I would. . .I agree with the objectives of the Rebellion. So that shouldn’t happen,” he answered, hoping he’d achieved diplomacy.

“Finn,” she replied wearily. “Who do you want to be?” 

Finn knew he’d lost. He’d be spending another week in the kitchens, at least. Aware that his chance was blown he allowed himself an unguarded moment of forlorn honesty. “Poe Dameron’s protector,” he answered sadly.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

Jolon was getting impatient with him. He wasn’t supposed to be, and he hid it under the utmost professionalism, but Finn was now astute enough to be able to tell. “Have you considered that you’re approaching this problem the wrong way?” the doctor prompted him, a note of exasperation buried deep in his tone.

“Yes, that’s what I think of all the time. I’ve tried a bunch of different strategies and none of them have worked,” Finn replied defensively. 

“Finn forget about Poe’s safety for a second. He’s going to go out there and fight either way and the reality is, even if you follow him around every moment of every day, which your job will almost certainly not be, as a soldier, you can’t stop him from getting hurt. If you can’t come up with one real, honest, heartfelt reason for why you, _you Finn_ , want to fight in this war maybe the General’s right. Maybe you shouldn’t be a soldier,” Jolon told him bluntly. Finn frowned. Jolon had never spoken to him like this before, and the change of tone captured his attention. Jolon had been suggesting that Finn needed to think of his own wants and needs and to be honest about them for weeks, but he’d never been so blunt.

“You only get one life Finn. Most people don’t get many second chances to decide who they want to be. Maybe the General doesn’t want to see you blow yours,” Jolon suggested. 

That night Finn thought on it for a long time. He sat with a piece of paper and wrote on the topic of who he wanted to be. It was a long sprawling, self indulgent, stream of consciousness that took up multiple pages. When he read it over afterwards, he was surprised by what he saw. What surprised him most was that he didn’t want to be someone new or alien to himself. He wanted to be the best parts of himself that had been present before he’d recognized them for the valuable qualities they were. 

“General, I need to fight,” Finn told her. The woman regarded him with a patient but weary expression.

“You know what I’m going to ask you,” she replied gently. “Take your time,” she added. Finn took a deep breath and scrunched up his brow in concentration. He considered momentarily how to form his thoughts into words. He let the breath out, and began.

“When I was Eight-Seven, there was this soldier who fought under me. They called him Slip, you know, cause he was a slip up and we were always having to rescue him from something. When you're a Storm Trooper the army’s only as strong as its weakest soldier, so if someone’s too slow or a slip up, you don’t help him. You let him die, so the weakest soldier’s strong, and the group isn’t brought down,” he explained. She frowned but nodded at him to continue. The General clearly found this narrative personally disturbing and not entirely promising, but she hadn’t stopped him either.

“We had this simulation where they put us in this digital reconstruct of a Rebel bunker, and of course, Slip fell behind again and got himself caught. I ordered my men to go back and rescue him. They were livid. I didn’t have friends at the time; I didn’t even really understand what friends were. But I was responsible for him, you know? After we left the Sim, the Captain ordered me to quit protecting him, I said I would but I knew it was wrong,” he continued. He could see that she was still listening, still seriously considering what he had to say. This wasn’t mere politeness, she wanted to know what he was getting at, which meant that she hadn’t written off his request just yet. He continued with renewed fervor.

“General, I know who I am now. I’m the guy who goes back to protect my friends, even when it’s a bad idea, or they screwed up, or maybe it’s twelve kinds of crazy. I think I was even before I escaped, before I knew what friends were. I’ve always been no one special,” he saw her intake of breath as she prepared to interrupt and argue the point, but he hurried to continue, afraid that if she interrupted him now he’d never get the thought out properly. “I know everyone here hates it when I think that way, which is nice, I guess, that they want to think I’m important. But I’m not Poe or Rey or you, and I’m not big enough for all this high-minded rebel stuff. I just want to protect my friends and try to keep the casualty count in check as best I can, on both sides. That means being out in the field. That means fighting with you,” he implored her desperately. 

“You were worried that I’d take orders without thinking it through because of where I came from. Maybe you’re right to be worried. I will take orders, but only so long as those orders involve trying to bring everyone back home safe. Poe trusts you to do that; if he didn’t he wouldn’t follow you. And I trust him. I need to do this if I’m ever going to get back to being that guy who saved the weakest soldier because it was the right thing to do,” Finn told her. 

He felt a nervous clench in his gut now that he’d said his piece. Somehow he knew this was his last chance. He had no more arguments, he’d lain himself bare. He wasn’t sure what he would do if her final and decisive answer was another refusal. Could he go on feeding the troops forever? It wasn’t a bad life. Meeko was kind to him, he got to keep learning new things, and he knew that the others appreciated the effort he put in, contributing to their lives in what ways he could. If he gave up on being a soldier, no one would think less of him here. He knew that. But it wasn’t for them that he wanted this. It was for himself.

“Alright, Cadet, I won’t deny you your rightful place any longer.” She agreed with a barely contained smile. Somehow, Finn got the feeling that she’d been waiting for this moment almost as anxiously as he had. A giant grin split his face as understanding dawned. “You mean, I’m in?” he asked demanding clarification in his excitement. 

“Yes, yes. You’ve made the decision to do this for your own reasons, to be the person you want to be. I suppose it’s time we get you back to where you belong.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've made it! After many weeks, _Actualization_ is finally complete. It's been so great reading everyone's comments. They've really inspired me to make this work everything it could be. So thank you all very much.
> 
> The sequel will be entitled _Trainee_ and follow the period while Finn is in combat training with the resistance. I've also got _Burnout_ in the works, a companion piece focusing on the time period _Actualization_ covers but from Poe's perspective. The first chapter is posted here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/7191563/chapters/16321736
> 
> Please keep in touch. Kudos and comments get me totally pumped to keep writing.


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